The First Million Digits of Pi - Paperback

by David E. McAdams (Editor)

Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, has been know to exist for thousands of years. Even before the common era, ancient mathematicians had found approximations for pi that were accurate to two digits (3.1). The Babylonians used 25/8 as an approximation of pi. The ancient Egyptians used 16/9 squared for pi. The next to improve the approximations for pi were Chinese mathematicians. The Chinese approximation was correct to seven digits (3.141592).

In Greece, Archimedes used a polygon drawn outside a circle, and a polygon drawn inside a circle, and extended pi to three digits (3.14). Finally, when infinite series were developed, one could calculate pi with pen and paper to as many digits as one had time for. It was not until computers came along that it was practical to calculate pi to a million digits. Here, in this book, are the results.

"Probably no symbol in mathematics has evoked as much mystery, romanticism, misconception and human interest as the number pi"William L. Schaaf, Nature and History of Pi

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David E. McAdams - After 30 years of software development, David McAdams was looking for something new to do. He turned his attention to math instruction. Through his coursework at Utah Valley University, he learned how critical vocabulary acquisition is to all learning, and especially to math. Math has long been regarded as its having its own language, with its own syntax and symbols. The acquisition of this language has been found to be a barrier to many students. When approaching his teaching internship, Mr. McAdams started to extend the existing course of instruction with activities designed to help student learn the language of math. However, as he looked for resources to which he could refer his students, he found that there was certainly no single resource, and in fact no combination of resources, that students at the intermediate algebra level could use to find all the definitions they might need during coursework. While still working as a teaching intern, Mr. McAdams started to collect a list of words along with definitions useful to his students. After the completion of his internship, Mr. McAdams continued to develop this list into a comprehensive dictionary, written for middle school and high school students. "All Math Words Dictionary" is the culmination of 8 years work collecting, classifying and describing all of the words a student might encounter in their studies of pre-algebra, beginning algebra, geometry, and intermediate algebra. This dictionary was developed using the four 'C's of math writing: ▪ Concise: Definitions are compact, yet understandable. ▪ Complete: All words and phrases of interest to targeted students are included, plus a few just beyond the scope of the target classes. Tables of symbols and notation, formulas, and units of measurement, plus lists of properties of objects give the student all the information needed to weld their understanding of the concepts and decipher many problems. ▪ Correct: The definitions have been thoroughly reviewed for mathematical and literary correctness. ▪ Comprehensible: The definitions are written to be understood by targeted students. Abundant illustrations aid in understanding. This book has over 3000 entries; more than 140 notations defined; in excess of 790 illustrations; an IPA pronunciation guide; and greater than 1400 formulas and equations.