Pi was first discovered by the ancient Egyptians, with references dating back to 1650 BC. The Greeks approximated it in fraction form around 200 BC, and Ludolph Van Ceulon calculated it to 16 decimal places in the late 16th century. It was named Pi in the 18th century and is an irrational number with numerous applications in geometry. A rough estimate is 3.14, but there is no true answer due to the number’s infinite digits.
Pi, given its name from the Greek letter, was not named that by the Greeks, nor did they invent the concept. It is true that the ancient Egyptians first discovered the number and there are references to a number in an Egyptian scroll dating back to 1650 BC. The scroll was written by a writer named Ahmes and refers to several mathematical formulas, including an approximation approximate of how to calculate the area of a circle using a number that would translate in modern terms to 3.1604.
It wasn’t until about 200 BC that the Greeks became aware of pi and, as stated, did not give it that name. Archimedes approximated it around 200 BC in fraction form, since the Greeks did not yet use decimals. He expressed pi as a fraction similar to 3 1/7, which is about 3.14 in decimal.
Mathematicians and scientists have for centuries left pi to Archimedes’ calculation. Interest in this number which makes sense, but never ends, increased again in the late 16th century. Ludolph Van Ceulon devoted much of his life to researching pi and his book On the Circle (Van den Circkel) repeated the methods of Archimedes. He calculated the number to 16 decimal places, and later the number was named for him and called the Ludolphian Number.
It was only at the beginning of the 18th century that 18… received its current name. The trend may have started with William Jones, a Welsh mathematician. He suggested calling the number with the Greek symbol for the letter pi, Π. This tradition was popularized by other mathematicians and is still in effect.
The number itself is harder to explain than its history. It is an irrational number, with no apparent end and no sequence or pattern to its decimal digits. Although irrational means that it cannot be expressed in fraction form, in rough estimates, it can be written as 22/7. The circumference of a circle in relation to its diameter is essentially . So if you want to figure out if a circle is nearly perfect, you need to divide the circumference by the diameter (the width of a circle) to get the number.
Since pi has been defined to some extent, it has numerous applications in geometry. The area of a circle is calculated using the formula Πr2. The perimeter of a circle is Πd or Π2r. However, any formula that uses the number has the basic assumption that you can only arrive at a rough understanding and never get a true answer. A fairly good approximation can be obtained, especially by extending the number of digits of pi used in formulas. For most purposes in beginning mathematics, students use 3.14 to get an estimate of the perimeters or areas of circles.
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