Pi - Numberphile
Some stuff about Pi, the "celebrity number'. More links & stuff in full description below ↓↓↓ This video features maths-loving author Alex Bellos ...
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ALEX BELLOS: Well, I wrote a whole chapter in my book, Alex's Adventures in Numberland, about pi, because it's kind of the most famous number in math. It's the sort of celebrity number. Pi is the simplest possible ratio of the simplest possible shape. So, the simplest possible shape being a circle, really. And pi is the ratio of all the way around it to all the way across it-- its circumference to its diameter. ROGER BOWLEY: And the Babylonians first thought it was about three. In fact, they wrote it down as three. ALEX BELLOS: What is interesting is that it's the simplest possible ratio of the simplest possible shape, but it's the most complicated, kind of ugly, number. It doesn't slice neatly. It's what's called an irrational number, which means th...
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ALEX BELLOS: Well, I wrote a whole chapter in my book, Alex's Adventures in Numberland, about pi, because it's kind of the most famous number in math. It's the sort of celebrity number. Pi is the simplest possible ratio of the simplest possible shape. So, the simplest possible shape being a circle, really. And pi is the ratio of all the way around it to all the way across it-- its circumference to its diameter. ROGER BOWLEY: And the Babylonians first thought it was about three. In fact, they wrote it down as three. ALEX BELLOS: What is interesting is that it's the simplest possible ratio of the simplest possible shape, but it's the most complicated, kind of ugly, number. It doesn't slice neatly. It's what's called an irrational number, which means th...
