We were tempted to call this blog entry “20 fun facts about Pi” but thought that the majority of people struggle to find maths fun. Trust me, these 20 facts about Pi will go some way towards changing your mind if you are a nonbeliever in the fascination of mathematics. Pi is an extraordinary number that deserves a close inspection.
1. Pi is a number that represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter or put more simply it is the ration of the total length of the outside of a circle compared to the distance between its center point and outside point.
2. It is commonly referred to as the π symbol which means periphery or perimeter.
3. The value of Pi is 3.14 although no one knows the true value as it is endless.
4. Mathematicians have now estimated the value to five trillion numbers after the decimal point but that is the limit of the computer power to date.
5. It has no specific pattern or trend so determining its total value is impossible.
6. The sequence 123456 does not appear in the first million digits of Pi but 12345 appears 8 times.
7. Archimedes of Syracuse is the one credited with the invention of pi.
8. Pi is very old with some estimating it dates back to the Babylonians although they only estimated it as 3.125, lazy.
9. Some mathematical followers believe that Pi is divine, calling it transcendental.
10. William Shanks calculated the first 707 digits of Pi by hand. It was considered an incredible achievement until someone realized he made a mistake in the 500s, still not a bad effort.
11. Pi day is celebrated in March 14th every ear specifically at 1.59 pm as the number is 3.14159
12. One museum holds a parade in the numbers honor. The parade is circular with each member holding a number that features in the early digits.
13. Fun runs are also held measuring 3.14 miles. This brings it incredibly close to a 5k run (3.11miles) which is often the standard anyway.
14. Rajveer Meena holds the Guinness book of world records for reciting pi. He did it to 70,000 digits and recited for 10 hours straight wearing a blindfold the whole time.
15. There is a bragging rights battle between Tau and Pi. Tau is twice the value of Pi and also holds an important place in mathematics. Followers of Tau would argue that Tau is not twice Pi, Pi is half Tau!
16. The largest pi symbol was formed by over 500 people in Germany.
17. Pi is referred to in the bible. So you can rest assured it has been driving people mad for many years.
18. Some people have given their whole lives to the mysteries that pi contains. One movie called..pi..focusses on the insanity that it can bring.
19. As Pi is an endless number, if converted into text, it would contain all the works of every author or every book written in perfect order at some point. This means that your name exists somewhere in Pi as does the phrase spaghetti banana Gwen Stefani.
20. We don’t really need too many digits of Pi. Those who deal with math problems on a universal scale would still only use Pi to the 39th decimal place and would find less than an atom in the size of the discrepancy in the whole universe. Using anything more is just showing off.
