pi

<+zerog_> in biblical times they used 3 as the value of pi
<+sand_man> no they didnt you liar
<+Triffix> Lies
<+zerog_> yes they did
<+zerog_> read some f***ing book you ignoramus
<+Triffix> Well I dunno about biblical times, but the Jewish Talmud masters, circa your dominus, used a more accurate value, I forget what

is this true? i know i called him a liar but i was just trying to cause trouble

http://www.instant-essays.com/mathem...i-number.shtml

This link talks about pi down through the ages, including the bible.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/494.asp

This link argues that one verse in the bible (mentioned in the above link) commonly thought to claim pi=3 does not necessarily do so.

(Oh dear God i just linked to AIG, damnit now i need to take a shower)

As an interesting aside, in radian mode on your calculator, type:

4 arctan (1)



it's a taylor series that estimates pi to a very large number of decimal places accuracy

or you can memorize 3.141592654, or you can try 21.991148/6.9999999... the latter is not as accurate as the first, but it's good enough for most cases... some calculaters have a precoded constant for pi already in there...

In related news:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legistature narrowly passed a law yesterday redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee Lawson (R, Crossville), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Guy Hunt says he will sign it into law on Wednesday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisly defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".

Read on...

how can you just change the value of a universal constant? this is another dumbass legality that can't die fast enough... it's not like somebody just made up pi, it's something you can actually calulate... just truncating the number to three creates a percent error of way over -4.50703415733158892215820670174... (assuming pi=3.141592654)

[T]he author took real statements from New Mexican legislators and school board members...

Haha!
The sad part is, I truly believe NM legislators to be capable of that.

Originally Posted by Jimbob1989

You know theres a world record for the number of decimal places calculated. its something like 33.3 Trillian.

Jimbob

actually its 1.2411 trillian
http://www.joyofpi.com/pifacts.html

Actually, it's trillion, not trillian.

Originally Posted by XSquared

Actually, it's trillion, not trillian.

crap, reading Jimbob's post actually made me stupider.... doh, i mean more stupid.

j/k jimbob.

Nope we suck

>Got thrown of www.computerforum.com.
Does this tell us what to expect from you around here?

Originally Posted by Jimbob1989

Hey,

I'm new here. Got thrown of www.computerforum.com. This forum any good?

Jimbob

If you enjoy being ridiculed with every post and can stand stupidity, this is the forum for you.

Howdy,

I'm new here. Got thrown of www.computerforum.com

Thats like starting a conversation with "Listen you pin headed bastard..."

M.R.

don't give him the chance! he's a witch! burn him!