Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Math. Show all posts

Monday, March 14, 2011

Happy Pi Day!

Pi day is March 14.
3.14
Pi  

Would you share some Pi with me?  =)

Pi (3.14) is used to find the circumference or area of a circle.
Pie is round, like a circle, but Pi are square.  πr² 
To find the area of a circle, use πr² (3.14 x radius x radius).
To find the circumference of a circle, use πd (3.14 x diameter).

The original recipe for Pi is 22/7, and no one has ever found the last digit of pi.  So it is an irrational number.
But an extremely smart person might be alleged to have discovered the last digit of Pi!  =)

Here is just a small slice of Pi.
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781...

But that's not the whole Pi!
To see more Pi, like the first 100,000 digits, click here.
Here's the history of making Pi.

Playing with Pi -- what it sounds like:

Explanation by Lars Erickson who composed and performed the Pi Symphony in 1992.
How Lars Erickson perfected his Pi in calculus class.

Don't worry, there is plenty of yummy Pi to go around.
No one has ever gotten the last slice yet.  =D

sMiLeS,

Monday, September 6, 2010

Something to think about....

You doubt that 2=1?  Consider the following:

     a = x            [true for some a's and x's]
   a+a = a+x          [add a to both sides]
    2a = a+x          [a+a = 2a]
 2a-2x = a+x-2x       [subtract 2x from both sides]
2(a-x) = a+x-2x       [2a-2x = 2(a-x)]
2(a-x) = a-x          [x-2x = -x]
     2 = 1            [divide both sides by a-x]

So then, 2=1, right?  =D

Impossible!  So where is the mistake? Think about it.
You may not like the first step (a=x). But we do this kind of thing all the time in Algebra. It's true for plenty of a's and x's. Assume that a is the number of ears on my head, and x is the number of ears on your head.  In that case a=x.  (if a is not equal to x, forgive me for mentioning it)
Anyway, all of the steps are perfectly legal except for the last one, dividing both sides by a-x. What is a-x? Well, a=x (step 1), so a-x=0. In the last step, we divided by zero. That's not allowed. And this puzzle is a good example of why it is not allowed.  =)