This year I asked the question online who discovered pi and found there was no easy answer. It has been an unfolding revelation through the ages as people have taken it to more and more places usually when they had nothing better to do and later letting computers do it for them. If you want to read more about all that here is a wikipedia link to get started, but Archimedes is mentioned early on and Sir Isaac Newton also. However, no one person seems to get the credit for the ‘discovery’.
The first recorded algorithm for rigorously calculating the value of π was a geometrical approach using polygons, devised around 250 BC by the Greek mathematician Archimedes.[30]
Isaac Newton used infinite series to compute π to 15 digits, later writing “I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures I carried these computations”.[52]
On Facebook, my friend Joseph Hebert pointed out that this is a very special year for pi day as you look at the opening digits you will see that we have a special instant. Wonder if that is AM or PM?
“…But this time there will be a pi instant.
3.14.15 9:26:53.5897…
There will be an instant between 09:26:53 and 09:26:54 that will be the perfect pi moment.”
My First Pi day post from 2011 here >>>
Have a pi moment today. Have a piece of pie to celebrate.
Happy Pi Day!
Posted by Sandra Crosnoe for Finding Gems & Sharing Them
Permalink: https://scrosnoe.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/happy-pi-day-2015