Determining the Value of Pi

Pi is a mathematical constant which represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and it is used in many mathematical calculations in science, mathematics, and engineering. It is approximately equal to 3.14159. Pi is an irrational number (It cannot be expressed as a fraction) and consequently its decimal representation never ends or repeats and it is a transcendental number (It has no known math operation or sequence that can produce it). A great deal of effort has been made to determine it more accurately. It can also represented by a Greek letter.

Students can easily remember the value of pi to 6 decimal places if they simply remember the sentence: "I wish I could translate pi." They do have to remember that it starts with the number "3" NOTE: The graphic uses the sentence "I wish I could remember pi" which is an estimate to six decimal places."

Sentence
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I wish I could translate pi.
1...4....1.....5..........9..........2
Number of letters in the word.
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There are many great ways for a teacher to demonstrate how to determine the value of pi. In one interesting experiment if an 8 1/2 piece of paper is used and parallel lines are drawn on the paper that have a distance between the lines that is just about 1 centimeter greater than the length of a toothpick, then the value of pi can actually be roughly determined by the dropping of toothpicks from about 1 1/2 feet above the paper and seeing where they land. The ratio of toothpicks that touch a parallel line and those that do not land touching any line can be used to calculate a value for pi. You can review this process on the internet.

You can also use a rolling cylinder to demonstrate how to determine the value of pi. As the cylinder is rolled on a flat surface, one complete revolution is directly related to the value of pi. Numbers like pi are of great interest to mathematicians because they could and were used in the development of encryption codes
for computers. Now very complex number patterns can be generated for such codes. Complex codes are very important in protecting bank account numbers for example.

Recently I watched a science program where a "savant" (a person with unique abilities in one or more areas, but often with problems functioning normally in other areas) was able to recite the value of pi to many hundreds of decimal places and he described the numbers he sees in his mind as being in colors and patterns. It would be interesting to study this "savant" to better understand his particular view of the mathematical world. The graphic has the value of pi to over 600 decimal places, but mathematicians have calculated the value of pi to at least 10 billion digits.

Note: Some savants can calculate birthdates, paint pictures, play music in exceptional ways but may have great difficulty doing everyday tasks. There are some savants that can function quite well in the world, but those are much more rare. These savants may eventually help us understand the abilities of the human mind.