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This Is How the Number 3.14 Got the Name 'Pi' (time.com)

Posted by msmash on from the happy-Pi-day! dept.

An anonymous reader shares a Time article: Ancient research on real numbers likely "didn't get improved upon until the age of Newton," says John Conway, mathematics professor emeritus at Princeton University who once won the school's Pi Day pie-eating contest. Sir Isaac Newton recorded 16 digits of pi in 1665, later admitting that he was "ashamed" of how long he had worked on the computations, as it meant that he had "no other business at the time," per the MAA. It was not until the 18th century -- about two millennia after the significance of the number 3.14 was first calculated by Archimedes -- that the name "pi" was first used to denote the number. In other words, the Greek letter used to represent the idea was not actually picked by the Ancient Greeks who discovered it. British mathematician William Jones came up with the Greek letter and symbol for the figure in 1706, and it was popularized by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, Catherine the Great's mathematician, a few decades later. "Euler was a much better mathematician than the people who used [pi] before, and he wrote very good textbooks," says Conway. "He used it because the Greek letter Pi corresponds with the letter 'P'... and pi is about the perimeter of the circle."

14 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. First Post by rjune · · Score: 3, Funny

    Where's my pie for first post?

    1. Re:First Post by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's interesting, because despite Euler's official story about perimeter, the English spelling of 'pie' was very much in use at the time, and as everybody knows, if you hold '3.14' up to a mirror, it spells 'PIE'.

      Not that math geeks would ever abide in-jokes.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re: First Post by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 2

      That's a shame really, because if we pronounced it as "pee" nobody would make any jokes about it.

  2. No one has said this yet... by Snard · · Score: 4, Informative

    ... but yes, it's "that" John Conway.

    --
    - Mike
    1. Re:No one has said this yet... by Xtifr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I was going to mention that, but honestly, he's not thrilled with that being what he's best known for. "I used to say, and I'm still inclined to say occasionally, that I hate it. I hate the Game of Life."

  3. Re:Tau is greater than pi by Software · · Score: 2

    If you're going to mention tau, you have to provide a link. http://tauday.com/tau-manifest...

  4. Unicode? by djbckr · · Score: 2

    Lesse... Pi is a unicode character that most computers can display.

    It should appear here >>

    Nope... Come on...

  5. Re:It's not 3.14. It's 3.141592653589793238462643. by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    nonsense, need a few more digits in machining, optics, space exploration, etc.

  6. Catherine the Great's Mathematician? by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do we really need to invoke Catherine the Great's name to help explain who Leonhard "one-of-the-greatest-mathematician's-of-all-time" Euler was? For me it would be more like "Catherine the Great, a sponsor of the legendary Euler, also happened to do some notable things while leading Russia".

    --
    Happy people make bad consumers.
  7. Re:Cuz pi are round by Golddess · · Score: 3, Funny

    Haven't you heard? Pie aren't round, pie are squared.

    --
    "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
  8. Pee and pie by spaceyhackerlady · · Score: 2

    Some years ago I had a university professor who was of Greek extraction, and he pronounced the names of the English and Greek letters the same, "pee". The coursework (communications) involved lots of probability distributions, so both came up frequently. You had to pay attention.

    ...laura

  9. Re:Divide a circle with radians... by Stinky+Cheese+Man · · Score: 2

    To calculate the surface area (a) of a pizza with radius z:

    Pi * z * z = a

    This formula was discovered by Sir Cumference, one of the lesser-known knights of the Round Table.

  10. Conway as in Conway's Life, that is by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    John Conway, mathematics professor emeritus at Princeton University who once won the school's Pi Day pie-eating contest.

    He also invented Life, of course.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  11. Euler was the man for all symbols! by janeil · · Score: 2
    Euler was the boss, and pretty much invented and standardized the way we write algebra symbols. As Dr. Julius Sumner Miller used to say, he is deserving of your further study!

    Also, 3.14 is so undeserving to connect with pi, it might as well just be three. What is still amazing is 355/113, the most accurate fraction for pi with a denominator less than 10,000 or so. (I could be off a little, look it up.)