What Is Your Favorite Pi Math Question? [Vanity]

FreeRepublic ^ | March 14, 2019 | Reno89519

[Reno89519]

Ah, that number: π = 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510 ...

And for trivia, what is the largest number of digits you know or have used in any calculation?

Me, I know it to 15 decimal places and one of my twin sons knows it to over 50. He runs them off so fast it is hard to tell.

[rhubarbk]

Pi Day? Make mine Boston Cream please.

[Ingtar]

This one is for me as your twin son know fewer digits than I have years.

[taxcontrol]

Pi related ....

If a hole measures 6 feet across and 3 feet deep, how big is half a hole?

[CaptainK]

Why is it never-ending?

[lee martell]

I’m not trying to Rain Cloud your post, but my only question about Pi is this: What is it used for in today’s world, except as an Open Set measurement of long ‘numbers’?
**P.S., I’m not that good at math, and have only rarely enjoyed it.

[Aevery_Freeman]

If there are infinite universes, one exists where Pi is rational.

What does a wheel look like in that universe.

(My students always enjoyed this question.)

[LucyT]

Why is it never-ending?

Because Pi is an irrational number.

[Red Badger]

Pie are squared.
Cornbread are round......................

[Reno89519]

At pizza sizes, not important, but at orbits, say for the International Space Station, which averages around 248 miles, a few extra decimal places makes an incredible difference.

For example, if you know the speed (around 17,500 mph) and altitude, you could calculate when it will be over a specific point as it orbits the Earth.

Or, what about a pinpoint laser to bounce off Mars, like a shotgun, you could calculate how much to lead that laser.

[Responsibility2nd]

[mountainlion]

Why does PI show up so many times in the pyramid calculations.

[BitWielder1]

There are never ending rational numbers too, for example
1/3 = 0.333333333333333333... or
1/7 = 0.142857142857142857...

[NorthMountain]

For one example, "pi" is an integral (ha ha) part of Gauss's Law, and of Ampere's Law, which partly describe electromagnetism. Designing the computer you're typing on, and the communications systems that form the internet by which you pose your question and I answer it, depend on a proper understanding of that field (ha ha). Pi is also involved in the Schroedinger equation, fundamental to quantum mechanics. Design of solid-state devices, among many other things, is at least partly dependent upon understanding that field.

So, aside from the area and circumference of circles, and the volume and surface area of spheres ... pi may be hidden from your view, but it is fundamental to the modern world you may well take for granted.

And, by the way, e^iπ + 1 = 0

[NobleFree]

e^iπ + 1 = 0

Love that one.

[grobdriver]

how big is half a hole?

The top half or the bottom half?

[sparklite2]

Memorize this mnemonic and you can cite pi to twenty places. The number of letters in each word represents a digit of pi.

How I wish I could relocate pi,
“Eureka!” cried the great inventor,
Christmas pudding, Christmas pie,
Is the problem’s very center.

[Dr. Zzyzx]

You only need 39 or 40 digits of pi to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within the width of a hydrogen atom.

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/2/11350518/nasa-digits-pi

[ETL]

[yarddog]

I remember when Kirk (or was it Spock?) ordered the computer to calculate Pi.