Digits of Pi
- Author:
- Kevin Hopkins
Drag the n slider to see n digits of pi.
People seem fascinated by pi. It is used to test out speed and computational accuracy of many new computers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_PI). Many memorize pi (when I did a google search on memorizing pi, there were 424,000 hits and you can find a list of world records at http://www.pi-world-ranking-list.com/index.php?page=lists&category=pi). I will confess I don't see the fascination with memorizing pi (if I were going to memorize something, I think memorizing scripture would be a much more beneficial use of my time).
Why are people fascinated with ideas about infinity? I believe it is because God is infinite and we were created in His image.
Isaiah 25:4: Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.
Genesis 1:27: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
There is a chapter on Infinity in the book , Mathematics Through the Eyes of Faith (short review available at https://godandmath.com/2011/08/02/mathematics-through-the-eyes-of-faith-2/ . This whole site looks at relating God & Math: Thinking Christianly about Math Education).
When I first showed this applet computing pi in a class, a student commented that the given value of pi was incorrect. Some computers have issues with doing such an involved computation correctly. Round off errors pile up and the final answer is not what it should be. This is a topic that is discussed in a Numerical Methods course.
As another "aside", I mention in some places about math songs: here is a link to a video of a song about Pi. I used a well known tune and changed the lyrics.