🚀 go-pugleaf

Martin Ward (martin@ward-hull.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: Pi day
: 
: 
: *22 July* should be Pi Day.  22/7 = 3.142857...  is the good
: approximation to pi known since the days of the ancient Greeks.
: 
A very clever and entertaining post. I agree that July 22 should be Pi
Day. Incidentally it is also the Deast of St. Mary Magdalene, patron saint
of prostitutes and "fallen" women in the Calendar of the Catholic Chu7rch.

But as for 22/7 being "close" to pi, "close" is a pretty bague term.
Compared with the spiral nebula in Andromeda, Betelgeuse is pretty close
to Earth but don't hold your breath waiting for some airline to announce
weekend excursions there.

3.14159265379 is a closer approximation to pi that I usually use. But that
isn't very close compared with the approximation developed by the guy who
used a computer to work it out to millions of sig figs. 

The most fascinating thing about all irrational numbers is that no matter
how hard we try we can never really get "close" to them. The number itself
always recedes over the horizon away from our attempts at precision.
That's why IMHO there really can't be any Pi day, e day, sqrt(2) day, etc.

Incidentelly I'm sure it must have ocurred to someone that there are
DEGREES of irrationality among the irrational numbers. For axample some
irrational numbers when subjected to a simple operation can be mapped to a
rational number. e.g. sqrt(2)*sqrt(2) = 2. Whilst as far as I know e*e and
pi*pi, e*pi, etc are still irrational. Since this ocurred to a
mathematical dunce like me it can't be that important but I though it was
interesting, so there.

MSG
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THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY, HA-HA
THEY'RE COMING TO TAKE ME AWAY...