Archimede's Constant in Everyday Life - Essay Example

 A helping of pi, anyone? From being called an Archimedes’ Constant to becoming the modern day “pi”, π has certainly come a long way. For the purpose of simplicity, the word “pi” will be used to refer to this wonderful irrational number, the serves as an object of fascination for both mathematicians and non-mathematicians. The complex nature of this number or mathematical constant charms everybody even in modern times; it is used in a variety of situations and not just as a relationship definer between a circle’s circumference and its radius. The essay will help to explain what this constant is all about, its history and origin, its uses by mathematicians as well as outside the boundaries of mathematics. Originally, according to the Webster Dictionary, π is the 16th letter of the Greek Alphabet series. The constant π is called so because it is the first letter of the Greek Letter word perimeter. The first person to use this Greek letter word for the denoting the value of pi, was William Jones. In plane geometry, the constant pi shows the relationship that exists between the circumference and diameter of a circle, regardless of its size. This constant remains the same regardless of the size of the circle. So, π = C/d serves as the basic relationship. Further modification can also help to rewrite the relationship as π = C/r2. The number is also transcendental; it is a number that is not a root of any polynomial with rational coefficients, or it is not an algebraic number of any degree. The value of pi is 3.141519... The origin of this constant can be traced back to the times of 400 BC in ancient Greece; this was the first time there has been evidence of recording the constant pi by a mathematician. Greeks, especially ancient Greece has been known for making giant leaps in the field of geometry and the identification of this constant does not come as a surprise. In later years of 200-300 BC, it was Archimedes who was able to approximate the figure of 22/7 for pi, for the first time ever. After Archimedes’ death, the Romans took control over the world. They are not known for the mathematical achievements and research into this wonderful constant was next to zero at this time. After the dark ages of the Roman invasion, pi gained activity again in the Renaissance period in Europe. In the 1700’s, after the invention of calculator, the fastest calculation method for pi was developed by Leonhard Euler. Now that we have the facility of super computers it has been found that the constant goes up to 206, 158, 430, 000 digits and counting! (Thinkquest, 2010) As mentioned above, the use of π inside the domain of mathematics is to denote the relationship between the circumference and the radius of a circle. It is used to find the area of a circle where Area=πr2, or the circumference of the circle through the by using circumference = 2πr. Further uses in high school education include finding the area of a part of circle, or the volume of a cylinder. In short, any equation that may involve a circular space will use π in its equation. This domain is slightly out of a mathematics class, where physics and specifically volume comes in to play. In higher level physics, pi is used to provide relationship between different variables to compute the force between two electrical charges, or the coulomb’s law. Coming towards a practical use of these laws, pi helps us in real life by providing us with electricity. The electricity that comes to our homes and provided to us is produced in waves. These waves are called “sin” waves and are related to the constant pi. Sin waves are also used in telephones, radar, Television and radios; these are very important things in our life today. Most of us cannot imagine a life without a television or a radio or a telephone today. Pi is helping us with our daily lives, even helping us study in the mathematics class. It is hard to digest but Pi is everywhere. Apart from physics, there is another domain that uses pi to solve complex issues; it is the field of probability. Pi is used in probability and statistics to compute the probability density function for the normal distribution curve. This is an important part of higher level statistics and forms the basis of most of the calculations. These tools are used in marketing research and help researchers infer important information through bits and pieces that are collected through surveys. So, to make things simpler, when we fill survey forms, the information is collected and fed into a system. The survey is filled by many people and the data is then gathered and plotted on a normal distribution curve to see its probability of occurrence or not. Hypotheses testing, one of the most important areas of survey data analysis uses normal distribution curve that employs pi in its essence. Astronomy in olden times was considered as one of the only ways to navigate a ship through sea in the night. Sailors have used it to their advantage even today. Pi is used by astronomers to find the relative position of a star and the person so that they can understand where exactly they are on the earth’s geography. With immaculate technological advancements, such a method has become obsolete; however, the basic principle is still used in navigation machines till date (Mathquest, 2010). These examples provide enough evidence that pi does not only help us find relationship between two variables in a math class, but helps in so many different ways in physics, navigation, probability and signals, to name a few. Many of the uses have not been mentioned considering their complexity level and the word limit of this essay. However, the one thing that is crystal clear is that pi has tremendous use in our everyday life. We may not see directly being used in our daily life, if we do not opt for a career in mathematics or physics; it still is playing its role. There is more to pi than meets the eye; as we move along the career and educational levels, we will see more and more uses of pi. Works Cited Thinkquest. “Your piece of the π” Oracle education foundation. 13th December 2010. http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110195/history/history.html Mathquest.”Pi in real life”. 13th December 2010. http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57045.html Read More