Pi - The Mathematical Wonder

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342

For years now the number Pi has confused, amazed, and frustrated mathematicians.  As of now, Pi is considered irrational (which means it has no ending).  But there are people out there trying to prove that Pi is indeed rational.  But since Pi has been taken out to 6.4 billion decimals, I doubt Pi is a rational number.   

Pi was first used by the Babylonians around the time of 2000 BC.  Their value for Pi was (25/8) or 3.125.  Later around 1650 BC an Egyptian scribe by the name of Ahmes wrote down different math formulas the Egyptians used to solve math problems, and written on the scroll was a number close to Pi which was used to figure out the area of a circle.  The Egpytians used Pi as 3 but later changed Pi to (22/7) = 3.142857143.  They also used (256/81) = 3.160493827.

Here is a table showing the value of Pi as thought of by early civilizations and mathematicians.

Of course the symbol wasn't used until Welshman William Jones back in 1706.  Euler (the same guy who worked with the letter e in logs) started to use the symbol and the symbol stuck.  Before Jones and Euler used as Pi, the symbols meant the number 80 in Greek.  

But what exactly is this number and what is it's use?  Click here to find out!

What to know some extra information on Pi?  Here are some tidbits on Pi.