Jump to content

π

From Wikiquote

Something's going on. It has to do with that number. There's an answer in that number. ~ π
Sweet and gentle and sensitive man
With an obsessive nature and deep fascination
For numbers
And a complete infatuation with the calculation
Of π.... ~ Kate Bush

π (sometimes written pi) is a mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle's circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. π is a transcendental number, approximately equal to 3.14159265358979 in the usual decimal notation.

Quotes

[edit]
He does love his numbers
And they run, they run, they run him
In a great big circle
In a circle of infinity... ~ Kate Bush
  • Historically [analytic geometry] arose... from the comparison of curvilinear and rectilinear magnitudes. ...the Egyptians and Babylonians, in their geometry of the circle, took the first steps. The former made a remarkably accurate estimate of the ratio of the area of the circle to the area of the square on the diameter, taking the ratio to be , equivalent to taking a value of about 3.16 for . The Babylonians adopted the cruder approximation 3... (although an instance is known in which the value is taken as ), but... recognized that the angle inscribed in a semicircle is right, anticipating Thales by well over a thousand years. Moreover, they were familiar... with the Pythagorean theorem.
  • Something's going on. It has to do with that number. There's an answer in that number.
  • One of the most frequently mentioned equations was Euler's equation, Respondents called it "the most profound mathematical statement ever written"; "uncanny and sublime"; "filled with cosmic beauty"; and "mind-blowing". Another asked: "What could be more mystical than an imaginary number interacting with real numbers to produce nothing?" The equation contains nine basic concepts of mathematics — once and only once — in a single expression. These are: e (the base of natural logarithms); the exponent operation; π; plus (or minus, depending on how you write it); multiplication; imaginary numbers; equals; one; and zero.
  • Among his [John Wallis'] interesting discoveries was the relation
       
    one of the early values of π involving infinite products.
    • David Eugene Smith, History of Mathematics (1923) Vol.1; Footnote: see his Opera Mathematica, I, 441
[edit]
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Commons
Commons
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

π Day

[edit]
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia has an article about:
Commons
Commons
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Mathematics
Mathematicians
(by country)

AbelAnaxagorasArchimedesAristarchus of SamosAverroesArnoldBanachCantorCartanChernCohenDescartesDiophantusErdősEuclidEulerFourierGaussGödelGrassmannGrothendieckHamiltonHilbertHypatiaLagrangeLaplaceLeibnizMilnorNewtonvon NeumannNoetherPenrosePerelmanPoincaréPólyaPythagorasRiemannRussellSchwartzSerreTaoTarskiThalesTuringWeilWeylWilesWitten

Numbers

123360eπFibonacci numbersIrrational numberNegative numberNumberPrime numberQuaternionOctonion

Concepts

AbstractionAlgorithmsAxiomatic systemCompletenessDeductive reasoningDifferential equationDimensionEllipseElliptic curveExponential growthInfinityIntegrationGeodesicInductionProofPartial differential equationPrinciple of least actionPrisoner's dilemmaProbabilityRandomnessTheoremTopological spaceWave equation

Results

Euler's identityFermat's Last Theorem

Pure math

Abstract algebraAlgebraAnalysisAlgebraic geometry (Sheaf theory) • Algebraic topologyArithmeticCalculusCategory theoryCombinatoricsCommutative algebraComplex analysisDifferential calculusDifferential geometryDifferential topologyErgodic theoryFoundations of mathematicsFunctional analysisGame theoryGeometryGlobal analysisGraph theoryGroup theoryHarmonic analysisHomological algebraInvariant theoryLogicNon-Euclidean geometryNonstandard analysisNumber theoryNumerical analysisOperations researchRepresentation theoryRing theorySet theorySheaf theoryStatisticsSymplectic geometryTopology

Applied math

Computational fluid dynamicsEconometricsFluid mechanicsMathematical physicsScience

History of math

Ancient Greek mathematicsEuclid's ElementsHistory of algebraHistory of calculusHistory of logarithmsIndian mathematicsPrincipia Mathematica

Other

Mathematics and mysticismMathematics educationMathematics, from the points of view of the Mathematician and of the PhysicistPhilosophy of mathematicsUnification in science and mathematics