Facts of Pi
• The symbol for Pi has been in use for over 250 years. The Greek letter (lowercase pi) was first introduced by a Welsh mathematician called William Jones, in 1706. However was not popularised until 1737 by a Swiss polymath called Leonhard Euler who was active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, logician, geographer and engineer.
• Since the exact value of pi can never be fully calculated, we cannot find the 100% accurate area or circumference of a circle.
• The current reciting record is held by Suresh Kumar Sharma, who recited an incredible 70 030 digits of π in 17 hours and 14 minutes.
That is an average of just over 1 digit per second.
• There is an entire language made from the number Pi. In “Pi-lish” the number of letters in each word match the corresponding digit of pi. This first word has three letters, the second has one letter, the third has four letters, and so on. This language is more popular than you might think. Software engineer Michael Keith wrote an entire book, called Not a Wake in this constrained writing style.
• Pi wasn’t always known as pi. Before the 1700s, people referred to the number as “the quantity which when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference”. Unsurprisingly, people got tired of using this exhausting phrase. The aforementioned mathematician William Jones, a friend of Sir Isaac Newton, began using the symbol for pi in 1706.
• The usefulness of pi has been a matter of debate, although it is loved by a lot of math enthusiasts. Some believe that tau (which amounts to 2π) is better suited to circle calculations. For instance, you can multiply tau with the radius of a circle to calculate its circumference more intuitively. Tau/4 also represents the angle of a quarter of a circle.
• The number pi is not just an important part of conversations among mathematicians or students. In the famous O.J. Simpson trial, the defense attorney and FBI agent’s argument revolved around the value of pi. The FBI agent’s findings in the case weren’t accurate because he used pi inaccurately.
• The number pi was so alluring, even in the 16th century, that Dutch-German mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen spent most of his life calculating the first 36 digits of pi. It is said that the first 36 numbers were engraved on his tombstone, which is now unfortunately lost.
• Many mathematicians believe that it is more accurate to say that a circle has infinite corners than it is to say that it has none. It is only reasonable to assume that the infinite number of corners in a circle correlates to the infinite number of digits of pi.
• The Greek letter π is the first letter of the word periphery and perimeter. And as we all know, pi is the ratio of a circle’s “periphery” to its diameter.
And Finally...
Happy Birthday to Albert Einstein, who was born on this day in 1879 🎂🥳
