#56: Pi

The Story Behind Pi

For whatever reason, infinite things comfort me. Irrational numbers, the method of exhaustion, infinitesimals, Galileo's paradox and our good ol' irrational friend Pi each hold a special place in my mind and help ground me whenever I start feeling mentally claustrophobic or boxed-in. From what I recall the Egyptians had a fairly solid grasp on geometry and were able to define pi as 256/81. They obviously didn't call it pi, but did understand that number was the anchor to the "most correct" way to determine the area of a circle. Mathematicians from Archimedes to Newton, Euler to Ramanujan have all left their mark on pi.

Also, happy, happy pi day!

Plain Text Description of Pi

A frustrated female stick figure with a pony tail asks a human-sized letter pi, "It just never ends with you does it?"