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The History of Pi

The document discusses the history of Pi, including early approximations of Pi from ancient civilizations like Babylon and Egypt, Archimedes' approximation around 250 BC, and increasingly precise calculations throughout history using geometric methods and later infinite series, culminating in modern computers calculating trillions of digits of Pi. The symbol π was first used in 1706 and has since become the standard way to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

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357 views1 page

The History of Pi

The document discusses the history of Pi, including early approximations of Pi from ancient civilizations like Babylon and Egypt, Archimedes' approximation around 250 BC, and increasingly precise calculations throughout history using geometric methods and later infinite series, culminating in modern computers calculating trillions of digits of Pi. The symbol π was first used in 1706 and has since become the standard way to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.

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exenitied
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The history of Pi

-It is in every mathematics book and almost everyone who knows even the tiniest bit about mathematics
knows about it. It might just be the most famous number in the world. That’s right, it is π ( Pi ), the ratio of a
circle’s circumference to its diameter ( roughly 3.14159 ). But what really is this mysterious number that
permeates all of mathematics? Let’s dive in, and go back all the way to the beginning.

-People have been trying to calculate the Welsh mathematician William Jones' use of
ratio of a circle’s circumference to its π as we know it now dates back to 1706.
diameter for roughly four thousand years. While he initially used π = 3.14 in 1736,
-The earliest written references to π were in Leonhard Euler first used π = 6.28. Since
Babylon and ancient Egypt. In the 19th to 16th then, the sign has been widely recognized
century BC, a Babylonian tablet was written thanks to Euler's enormous contribution to
that, by modern historiography, assumed π mathematics.
was 3.1. An Egyptian document dated to 1850
BC treated pi as 3.16. While these -In 1655, the English John Wallis published
approximations were good for their time, they the Wallis product: Around this time, Isaac
were not really based on mathematical Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
formulae. For that, we have to jump forward developed calculus, a way of studying
1500 years to Ancient Greek. constantly changing numbers, which
changed the history of π. In 1674, Leibniz
-Around 250 BC, the mathematician published his well-known formula for π:
Archimedes devised an algorithm to π 1 1 1 1
=1 − + − + ...
approximate π using the perimeters of 4 3 5 7 9

regular polygons. With this method, he


223 22
-In 1699, the Leibniz formula was used to
proved that 71
< π< 7
, which was calculate to 71 digits, and in 1706, an
remarkably close (It has been suggested that astronomy professor named John Machin
this approximation led to the belief that derived a way from it to calculate to 100
π =
22
). 100 years later, Ptolemy gave pi as digits. In order to determine pi's greatest
7 number of digits for the following 250
3.1416. Chinese mathematicians also gave years, formulae derived from this
some calculations of π, such as 3.154 and one—known as Machin-like formulae—were
3.164. In the 5th century, the mathematician Lu utilized; in 1946, Daniel Ferguson calculated
Chongzhi gave an approximation that would pi's 620th digit using a Machin-like formula.
become the most accurate for nearly a
millennium after:
355
( 3.1415929 ). -From then forward, computers completely
113
changed the search for the digits of π.
-In 1424, the Persian mathematician al-Kāshī American mathematicians reached 1,120
used the polygon approximation method to digits in 1949 with a calculator. John von
calculate π to 16 digits. In 1596, the Dutch Neumann reached 2,037 digits with the
mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen reached ENIAC, the first electronic computer. The
20 digits, a record broken in 1621 by Willebrord record increased explosively, culminating
Snellius, a Dutch (again) scientist who in 1 million digits by 1973. In the 1980s, new
reached 34. And finally, the Austrian algorithms to calculate π, which were much
Christoph Grienberger calculated pi to 38 faster than the old infinite series once
digits in 1630. These people all used again accelerated the search. The record
geometric methods (polygons). From here on increased exponentially again, from 2
out, the search for the digits of π would be million digits in 1981, to 17 million digits in
revolutionized by the development of infinite 1985, to 51 billion digits in 1997, to the
series (infinite sequences of numbers) which current record of 100 trillion digits,
can be added or multiplied together. achieved on March 21, 2022, only 7 days
after Pi Day.
-A brief history of the symbol π itself: The first
meaning of the sign was to represent a
circle's half-circumference. At that time, pi was
π π
represented by fractions like δ
or 2ρ
.

-The history of the number π and its digits are fascinating and worth a further read if you’re
interested. It tells a story of mathematicians, engineers, and scientists alike ultimately trying to
outdo each other and getting the trophy. What is surprising is that such a simple-looking
number from a simple formula, can have such complexity behind it if you look deep enough. We
hope you enjoyed this story as much as we do.-

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