Pi is the sixteenth letter in the Greek Alphabet (π). In math, it is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It has a value of 3.14159265358979323846… and the numbers go on without repeating. Translated to a fraction, it’s approximately 22/7. How did this important mathematical symbol originated?
Pi has been an alive concept as long as 4, 000 years ago by the Babylonians. They made it by calculating the area of the circle by getting 3 times the square of its radius.
But then, during 287-212 BC, it was first calculated by Archimedes from Syracuse. We all know that he is among the most prominent mathematicians in the history of the ancient civilizations. He was able to get the approximate area of a rectangle by using the Pythagorean Theorem which allows him to find the surface areas of the two basic polygons, the one inside the circle and the one circumscribed. He then proved that pi is between the numbers of 3 1/7 and 3 10/71.
It was also mentioned in the Bible:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about. (I Kings 7, 23)
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it. ( II Chronicles 4:2)
However, their value was 3, not exactly the exact number.
Nobody really knows who had the idea. But all over the world, it was popular even in Ancient China by an early Chinese Mathematician named Zhu Chongzhi who lived between AD 429-500. However, the most accurate one during the computer age was D. F. Ferguson. However, the word Pi is not only popular with math but also on some other aspects like the movie called the Life of Pi.
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