Pi
By Victora Eves on April 6, 1998
:
HELP! I do not understand PI. I know that it words, I know the relevant
formulas for circles, but I do not understand how someone came up with an
idea that a number (p) could be used in all circles for finding the
area/circumference. Please tell me how this number came about and how it was
proved to be true in all circles.
thank you
Victoria Eves
By Anonymous :
Dear Victoria,
You are absolutely right to feel as you do and in what you say because all
GCSE mathematics really teaches about p are the relevant formulas for
circles and that ''it works'', just as you say.
Mathematics has some amazing constants (like p and e) which crop up all
over the place which is pretty awesome! But everything in maths can be
proved, you don't have to take it on faith. To prove the circle formulas you
need calculus which is done in A level maths.
There is a bit about the history and about Archimedes method for finding an
approximate value for p in one of the answers to an earlier question on
this web board, called
Circumference of a Circle .
For thousands of years people have been trying to compute pi to
more and more decimal places and now they are using very powerful
computers to do this, rather pointless really!
Very best wishes,
NRICH