In the American system of writing dates, today is 3/14 (March 14th) which is the approximation of π to two digits 3.14. It's therefore celebrated as π Day.
Happy π Day!
The media is buzzing with the annual outpouring of π math and trivia and here's some good stuff:
- BBC has a good introduction to π in history and culture.
- Watch an applet compute the value of π using Buffon's Needle Problem.
- For those interested in numerical computation, here are some ways to compute the value of π. One of the ways is using the series expansion for arctan(x):
- If you're mesmerized by continued fractions, here are some continued fractions that represent π. One that particularly looks "nice" is this one:
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