Pi calculate it use it abuse it or eat it?

[Frank S]

This might stir up some brain cells or fry some as well.
pi being one of the few irrational numbers of the world
I thought we might like to see what it could taste like
Notice I said see. We will have to use our imaginations for the actual taste

Probably the first time I ever heard of pi the number that is, was in my 5th grade geometry class Ok it may have been the 6 grade or even the 7th who remembers exactly what happened 50 or 60 years ago anyway.
I do recall though that after being exposed to finding an area of a circle using a strange looking number up on the chalk board we were tasked with finding the area of an oval using our compass a protractor a ruler, pencil & paper. Which if I am not misremembering started out with having to determine all of the various true radius's the arc angles they occupied in the oval and so forth. What I don't remember is if I got the answer correct using the guidelines of the teacher or if I cheated and measured the perimeter divided by pi then divided that by 2 then squared the number and multiplied by pi once again

[owen moore]

What is the name of a snake that is 3.14 ft. long?

[tonyfoale]

Is this related to a "Pie chart"?

[Gadgeteer]

What is the name of a snake that is 3.14 ft. long?

That's too easy.

[old kodger]

What is the name of a snake that is 3.14 ft. long?

A carpet snake

[old kodger]

I want to know if they skinned all the little "pi's" first........4 and twenty pi's cooked in a blackbird, alright, so I'm dyslectic.

[DIYSwede]

pi being one of the few irrational numbers of the world

Sorry to be nit-picking - but the statement (in my BOLD) above caught my eye:

"Since the reals form an uncountable set "R", of which the rationals "Q" are a countable subset,
the complementary set of irrationals "R∖Q" (or "R set minus Q") is uncountable."

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrati...ll_irrationals

[mklotz]

An irrational number is any number that cannot be represented by a rational fraction, i.e. a fraction that consists of an integer divided by another integer, e.g. 0.375 = 3/8.

Yes there are an infinite number of irrational numbers, just as DIYSwede said.

If the "oval" Frank mentioned was in reality an ellipse ("oval" is not a recognized name for any geometric figure), the area is given by:

A = pi * a * b

where:

a = length of semi-major axis
b = length of semi-minor axis

Given an ellipse, these lengths are easily found using a compass and ruler.

The teacher was probably going to follow this exercise with the observation that, as the ellipse becomes more and more symmetrical, a and b become equal to a value we'll label 'r', and the area of the resulting circle becomes the familiar...

A = pi * r * r = pi * r^2

[Frank S]

Actually if I remember correctly the oval was more of a misshapen ovoid in shape such as a deformed egg might be with 1 large end the small end and non concentric sides. A lot of water has flowed beneath the bridges in the 55or so years since the teacher had drawn it on the chalk board there could have been as many as 5 of 6 different radius' in the thing expecting us to break the drawing into segments of triangles and cords calculating the areas of each then adding sum totals to find the total area Heck it may have even been an exercise in a class in high school as some of my middle school teachers taught classes in the freshmen and sophomore grades as well Our school had less than 250 students from gr1 through 12. I'm pretty sure I cheated to come up with the answer though

[DIYSwede]

Teacher: -Do any of you know what medical condition Johannes Kepler was suffering from,
when he formulated his 3 laws of planetary motion?
Students: ?????
Teacher: -Well, an elliptic seizure, of course!

I just couldn't resist - or as Georg Ohm also put it: "Resistance is futile!"