Judgement Call, Part II: Pi and the Buffon Needle Problem
September 25, 2005
Near the end of this week's episode, Charlie remarks that one of the mysteries of mathematics is how the number "pi" appears in so many different occasions. He recalls that pi is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter. Thus pi was originally defined in a geometric setting.
The Greek mathematicians of around 400 - 300 BCE, including Euclid, were able to prove that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is the same for any circle... continued »