I broke Pi

[stark]

Raxacoricofallapatorius said
-video-

One of my favorite skits.

[Raxacoricofallapatorius]

Never gets old.

But wait, Sherlock has got to be the smartest-est. How do I get pi? I feel like I've been lied to. This is why I have trust issues.

[Jorick]

The reason for the repetition is that 22 divided by 7 is not actually pi, it's just the closest you can get with a common fraction. Pi is derived from the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which is in fact an irrational number and as such you can't accurately get it by dividing two rational numbers.

The 22/7 shortcut is only useful as a rational number substitute for pi if you don't have to care about anything past the second decimal place, and you can see why that is in your image. The actual first few digits of pi are 3.14159, so you've already got some deviation by the third number past the decimal.

So basically you didn't break pi, you found proof as to why 22/7 actually is not equal to pi.

Raxacoricofallapatorius said
But but… then how does one calculate pi?

Find a circle that you know the circumference and diameter of. Find their ratio. Tah-dah, you've calculated pi.

[CidTheKid]

Yeah, I just realized it was 22/7.

By the way, you can't represent pi as a rational number, so division is not going to be enough to punch out pi.

You may want to look into other methods.

[stark]

Jorick wins.

[Raxacoricofallapatorius]

I am 312% done with math.

[CidTheKid]

Jorick said
Find a circle that you know the circumference and diameter of. Find their ratio. Tah-dah, you've calculated pi.

Thats awful. That requires you to get string, a ruler, and a compass to measure a circle, and your result will only be as accurate as your ruler at the end, because you run into the same problem again.

Slightly better is to use the infinite sum [4/1 - 4/3 + 4/5 - 4/7 + 4/9 +... 4/2n-1] whose value converges on pi as n approaches infinity.

Or any other method you could find with google.

[Polymorpheus]

.

[mdk]

[Halo]

Buffon's Needles ftw. That is all. Blew my mind when I saw the Numberphile video on it.

[CidTheKid]

catchamber said
π/1

...rational fraction. you cant do it as a rational fraction.

not sure why I didn't feel i had to specify.

[mdk]

CidTheKid said
...rational fraction. you cant do it as a rational fraction. not sure why I didn't feel i had to specify.

c/d

[CidTheKid]

mdk said
c/d

but c = πd, so it's still an irrational fraction.

[Joegreenbeen]

I declare this the MOST intelligent thread in SPAM!

[Drakel]

CidTheKid said
but c = πd, so it's still an irrational fraction.

c/πd

[azarhiro]

Ok I'm a math genius.and I'm only barely keeping up.soooo I'm in love with this spam.

[Jorick]

Drakel said
c/πd

c/πd equals 1, and as such it is not a rational fraction that gives you pi, as they were discussing. Pro tip: if pi is in the fraction it's not rational and it probably won't equal pi.

c = πd
thus
c/πd = πd/πd = 1

azarhiro said
Ok I'm a math genius.and I'm only barely keeping up.soooo I'm in love with this spam.

Then you're probably not as much of a math genius as you thought. This is intro to geometry level content here.

[Halo]

Jorick said
c/πd equals 1, and as such it is not a rational fraction that gives you pi, as they were discussing. Pro tip: if pi is in the fraction it's not rational and it probably won't equal pi.c = πdthusc/πd = πd/πd = 1Then you're probably not as much of a math genius as you thought. This is intro to geometry level content here.

Depends how old they are. I was going to make a comment but reminded myself that RPG's age range is ever-expanding.

[Drakel]

Jorick said
c/πd equals 1, and as such it is not a rational fraction that gives you pi, as they were discussing. Pro tip: if pi is in the fraction it's not rational and it probably won't equal pi.c = πdthusc/πd = πd/πd = 1

You do know that 1 WAS actually the answer that I was looking for...

Congradulations Jorick you get a star for effort.

*

[Raxacoricofallapatorius]

Fun fact: Not everyone agrees that 2+2=4

Just something I learned last week.

Also there are indigenous people in Australia who don't use numbers at all.