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Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading A History of Pi. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. The history of pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when pi made progress -- and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. Published July 15th by St. Martin's Griffin first published January 1st More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Steev Mathew I really enjoyed the book. The author has balanced the background history and the mathematical concepts, so that it can be appreciated by anyone even …more I really enjoyed the book. The author has balanced the background history and the mathematical concepts, so that it can be appreciated by anyone even without a thorough mathematical base. But I would say, it can be a lot more appreciated if you can work out the math. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Apr 22, Andrew Breslin rated it really liked it. I received this book on March 14, during my annual pi day celebration. And while the pie was delicious, this made for an even tastier dessert. Everyone thinks mathematicians are a soporific A History of Pi who bring to their work all the passion and ardor of a three-toed sloth on barbiturates. But no! A History of Pi is one such A History of Pi curmudgeon, never for a moment dissuaded to let fly with a litany of political opinions even while right in the middle of an equation. A chi p on his shoulder. A bone to pick specifically: a radius. No punches are pulled here. Expect to be both offended and intimidated, and maybe a little confused. A History of Pi of the math went sailing right over my head. Fortunately I A History of Pi have enough sense to duck A History of Pi I A History of Pi have been smacked A History of Pi the face with a dangerously pointy arctangent function, and we all know how much that would have sucked. The unsolicited rants about the Romans, the Catholic Church, and assorted megalomaniacal mathematicasters are just a delightfully fractious bonus. I can hardly wait for March 14 to roll around again. Great book. If you enjoy reading about the history of math, you'll enjoy this book. Even if you skip over the equations. A History of Pi 1 comment. Oct 05, Chad Bearden rated it liked it Shelves: popular-science. The fact that it was written in adds a little bit of out-of-date flavor that makes "A History of Pi" a lot more amusing than it A History of Pi might have been. As a history of pi, it kind of doesn't really work for a A History of Pi of reasons. First of all, its not really a history of pi. Its more like a history of mathematics in general. But even there, its far too anecdotal to serve as any A History of Pi history lesson. Beckmann jumps and skips from one era to another giving you the lowdown on a random sampling The fact that it was written in adds a A History of Pi bit of out-of-date flavor that makes "A History of Pi" a lot more amusing than it otherwise might have been. Beckmann jumps and skips from one era to another giving you the lowdown on a random sampling of famous mathemeticians. The fact that he occasionally delves into the methods by which those mathemeticians were able to calculate pi with greater and greater accuracy over the years I guess justifies the book's title. Secondly, Beckmann does absolutely A History of Pi to make pi seem like the awesomly inpenetratable number that it is. The main reason I picked this up to read in the first place was because I recently read the chapter from Richard Preston's most recent book about the Chudnovsky brothers and their strange obsession with calculating the digits of pi. In that single chapter, Preston did a fascinating job of pulling you into the bizarre world of pi, and made me understand why a mathemetician could get A History of Pi in all those infinite, endless numbers. Petr Beckmann never really attempts to get into the philosophical implications of pi, and that left me a little wanting. The third thing that bugged me was Beckmann's occasional lapses into opaque mathematical formulas. To his credit, he does include a A History of Pi tip in his introduction: "The reader who find the mathematics too difficult in some places is urged to do what the mathemeticians will do when he A History of Pi it too trivial: Skip it. Among these little problems, however, arises the " Factor". This Factor manifests itself in a few amusing ways, not the least notably in the book's final chapter apparently added in its third edition about "The Computer Age". Its like basking in the delight of a five year old's amazement when you pull a quarter out of their ear. It's just so adorable. The other amusing side effect is Beckmann's unmasked distate for those darned communists! Amid the sometimes dry historical accounts and the calculus equations and geometric theorems, the author just can't help himself and throws in several rather opinionated rants against those pesky Soviets. They made for some odd juxtapositions that brought a smile to my face every time they came up. It's just a weird tangent to wander into in the middle of a text on the history of mathematics. But it didn't quite live up to the mysterious awe inspired by the Preston artical that led me to pick it up in the first place. I want the Chinese, Mayan, and Indian history of pi. The Mayan history of pi was most likely burned by that one bishop, but the Chinese A History of Pi Indian history I believe to be still in existence. Other than that, it was a thoroughly engrossing read and definitely nice to have read for my continuing Mathematics education. Jul 22, Dustin rated it liked it Shelves: pop-science. In the first few pages, the author describes this book as being 'light on the math. Clearly, it is a book about math, and more than that, it is a book about a transcendental number, a constant that can NOT be A History of Pi. Fair enough. However, when the first few examples he gives of how the ancients found their values for pi are rendered into oh-so-simple differential calc In the first few pages, the author describes this book as being 'light on the math. However, when the first few examples he gives of how the ancients found their values for pi are rendered into oh-so-simple differential calculus, it does not count as making the book math-lite to merely leave out the proof. Leave out the differential calculus, too! Near as I can tell, the half-angle arctangent series are muy importanto to programming computers to figure out pi for A History of Pi. However, the upshot to this book is that the author barely escaped from A History of Pi Russia, and so has ZERO tolerance for oppression in any of its forms. Therefor, his tangents tend to turn into rants, including my favorite part of the book, where he successfully, IMHO compares that paragon of western civilization, the Holy Roman Empire, with a few other empires: Napoleon's ill-fated French empire, Russia's ill-fated Soviet empire, and Nazi Germany's ill-fated Third Reich. He also pulls no punches when dealing with forces that have stifled or otherwise countermanded the course of scientific and mathematical progress, saving special vitriol for those who burned libraries. Halfway through the book, the author writes that "the digits beyond the first few decimal places [of Pi] are of no practical scientific value. Four decimal places are sufficient for the design of the finest engines; ten decimal places would be sufficient to obtain the circumference of the earth within a fraction of an inch". And yet I find myself continuing reading through the rest of the book of how new methods to find more decimals places were discovered. Although a little outdated in the last Halfway through the book, the author writes that "the digits beyond the first few decimal places [of Pi] are of no practical scientific value. Although a little outdated in the last chapters, the underlying narrative of the book is a brief history of man, beginning in the stone age all the way through the "computer age" at the end of the decade of 's, with Pi as protagonist. Curious is to grasp out how much progress we have done mathematically, but how much little progress we have done as human race. The author summarizes that throughout the history it has become fashionable to blame science and technology for the ills of society, and A History of Pi writes in his last lines that perhaps the n-th generation of intelligent computers will make a better job of keeping peace among men and nations than men have ever been able to do. We have failed so far. Feb 02, Satendra Deo rated it really liked it Shelves: history. Easily readable for a mathematical book. pi | Definition, Facts, & History | Britannica

The history of Pi, says the author, though a small part of the history of mathematics, is nevertheless a mirror of the history of man. Petr Beckmann holds up this mirror, giving the background of the times when Pi made progress — and also when it did not, because science was being stifled by militarism or religious fanaticism. The mathematical level of this book is flexible, and there is plenty for readers of all ages and interests. Petr Beckmann was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, in Untilhe worked as a research scientist for the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, when he was invited as a Visiting Professor to the University of Colorado, where he decided to stay permanently as professor of electrical engineering. Beckmann has authored 11 books and more than 50 scientific papers, mostly on probability theory and electromagnetic wave propagation. History is one of his side interests; another is linguistics he is A History of Pi in five languages and he has worked out a new generative grammar which enables a computer to construct trillions of grammatical sentences from a dictionary of less than unprocessed words. He also publishes a monthly A History of Pi, pro-technology, pro-free enterprise newsletter Access to Energy, in which he promotes the viewpoint that clean energy can be made plentiful, but that A History of Pi to it is blocked by government interference and environmental paranoia. A History of Pi. Vestibular ITAadaptado. De A History of Pi as alternativas, apenas a b apresenta um sentido correto. As demais palavras significam:. No texto, o ano de A Brief History of Pi

Everybody knows the value of pi is 3. But who discovered it? It's hard to pinpoint who, exactly, first became conscious of the constant ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, though human civilizations seem to have been aware of it as early as BC. One cubit is about 18 inches, though it was measured by a person's forearm length and A History of Pi varied from one person to another. Egyptologists believe these proportions were chosen for symbolic reasons, but, A History of Pi course, we can never be too sure. The earliest textual evidence of pi dates back to BC; both the Babylonians and the Egyptians had a rough idea of the value. Archimedes didn't calculate the exact value of pi, but rather came up with A History of Pi very close approximation—he used sided polygons to A History of Pi up with a value that fell between 3. The Ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse BC is largely considered to be the first to calculate an accurate estimation of the value of pi. He accomplished this by finding the areas of two polygons: the polygon that was inscribed inside a circle, and the polygon in which a circle was circumscribed see figure above, right. Chinese mathematician Zhu Chongzhi AD used a similar method to A History of Pi the value of pi, using a 12,sided polygon. The approximate ratio for pi also appears in the Bible in 1 Kings :. I should point out that the Biblical ratio for pi could be more accurate than one might think, since cubits changed depending on a person's forearm length. So, assuming the Bible isn't quoting cubits from the same person each time…. In the 15th century, Indian mathematician Madhavan of Sangamagramam discovered what is now known as the Madhava-Leibniz series A History of Pi after German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, who rediscovered the series in the 17th centuryan infinite series that converges to four. Madhavan subsequently calculated pi to 11 decimal places. The most accurate calculation of pi before the advent of the computer was by D. Ferguson, who calculated pi to digits in previously, William Shanks had calculated pi to digits inbut only of said digits were correct. Of course, then computers entered the picture and calculating pi knew no bounds—beginning A History of Pi D. Ferguson's calculation of pi to digits in with a desk calculator to Takahashi Kanada's calculation of pi to ,, digits in with a Hitachi SR Shigeru Kondo carried out the longest calculation of pi to date on October 19, So there you have it—Egyptians calculated pi using pyramids or did A History of Pi calculate pyramids using pi? Pi has a special place in popular culture, thanks to its prevalence in mathematical formulae and its mysterious nature. For example, pi gets mentioned in a scene from Twilightin which vampire-boy Robert Pattinson recites the square root of pi and on-the-ball Kristin Stewart quickly shuts him down. The Simpsons is also pretty into pi and math references in general. Finally, pi is perhaps most rampant in pop culture on March 14—Pi Day! Correction, March 14, An earlier version of this story mistakenly stated that Archimedes' estimate for pi was 3. His actual estimate calculated pi to be between 3. If you average these two figures, you get an in-between point of 3. We regret the error. Sarah is a freelance writer and editor based in Los Angeles. Albert the Intern tries to remember what comes next The history lesson It's hard to pinpoint who, exactly, first became conscious of the constant ratio between A History of Pi circumference of a circle and its diameter, though human civilizations seem to have been aware of it as early as BC. The approximate ratio for pi also appears in the Bible in 1 Kings : "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 round about. So, A History of Pi the Bible isn't quoting cubits from the same person each time… In the 15th century, Indian mathematician Madhavan of Sangamagramam discovered what is now known as the Madhava-Leibniz series named after German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz, who rediscovered the series in the 17th century A History of Pi, an infinite series that converges to four. Yep, whether you like it or not, pi is everywhere. Article originally published March 13, ; updated March 13, Read our affiliate link policy for more details. Related: Science Industry Internet.