MMMMMMMMM.....π

Personal Note….I am bringing in some pie for my co-workers. They will be served promptly on 3.14 at 1:59-2:65 (3:05pm)

pi =

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510

5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679

8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128

4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196

4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091

4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273

7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436

7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094

3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548

0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912

...
http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/organics/papers/borwein/paper/html/local/billdigits.html


Pi is an infinite decimal. Unlike numbers such as 3, 9.876, and 4.5, which have finitely many nonzero numbers to the right of the decimal place, pi has infinitely many numbers to the right of the decimal point.

If you write pi down in decimal form, the numbers to the right of the 0 never repeat in a pattern. Some infinite decimals do have patterns - for instance, the infinite decimal .3333333... has all 3's to the right of the decimal point, and in the number .123456789123456789123456789... the sequence 123456789 is repeated. However, although many mathematicians have tried to find it, no repeating pattern for pi has been discovered - in fact, in 1768 Johann Lambert proved that there cannot be any such repeating pattern.

As a number that cannot be written as a repeating decimal or a finite decimal (you can never get to the end of it) pi is irrational: it cannot be written as a fraction (the ratio of two integers).

Pi is a very old number. We know that the Egyptians and the Babylonians knew about the existence of the constant ratio pi, although they didn't know its value nearly as well as we do today. They had figured out that it was a little bigger than 3; the Babylonians had an approximation of 3 1/8 (3.125), and the Egyptians had a somewhat worse approximation of 4*(8/9)^2 (about 3.160484), which is slightly less accurate and much harder to work with. For more, see A History of Pi by Petr Beckman (Dorset Press).

The modern symbol for pi [π ] was first used in our modern sense in 1706 by William Jones, who wrote:

There are various other ways of finding the Lengths or Areas of particular Curve Lines, or Planes, which may very much facilitate the Practice; as for instance, in the Circle, the Diameter is to the Circumference as 1 to (16/5 - 4/239) - 1/3(16/5^3 - 4/239^3) + ... = 3.14159... = (see A History of Mathematical Notation by Florian Cajori).

Pi (rather than some other Greek letter like Alpha or Omega) was chosen as the letter to represent the number 3.141592... because the letter [π ] in Greek, pronounced like our letter 'p', stands for 'perimeter'.

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.pi.html


For a neat illustration…see Wiki here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi


The Meaning of Life (42) and Pi

(Quoting from Scott Glazer): Trying to come up with a significant number to search for, I thought of 42 (the answer to life, the universe, and everything in Hitchhikers's Guide to the Galaxy.) 42 would be way too common of course, so I went for 424242. Came back that this shows up at position 242423. Add one (for the decimal point, I lamely rationalize here) and you get 242424, the reverse of the original input. Now that's meaningful... or something.

[Editors Note] Amusingly enough, the entire string returned is 242424242. If you disregard either of the ending twos, you find that it's the same position at which you find 42424242. Ahh, the palindromic possibilities inherent in a reversible meaning of life string. --Dave http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery#comments


Oh Number π (to the tune of O’Tanenbaum)

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
Your digits are unending,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
No pattern are you sending.
You're three point one four one five nine,
And even more if we had time,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
For circle lengths unbending.

Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
You are a number very sweet,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
Your uses are so very neat.
There's 2 Pi r and Pi r squared,
A half a circle and you're there,
Oh, number Pi
Oh, number Pi
We know that Pi's a tasty treat.

http://www.winternet.com/~mchristi/piday.html