Pi: Irrational and Endless...

A mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter

The mathematical constant Pi has been represented by the Greek letter 'π' since the mid-eighteenth century, but it is sometimes still written as 'pi.' Pi is irrational, meaning it is not equal to the ratio of any two whole numbers. It is equal to approximately 3.14159, and an approximation such as 22/7 is often used for everyday calculations. Pi is used for mathematical problems involving the length of arcs, curves, and solid volumes. It is also employed in physics and engineering.

Pi has been used by mathematicians since ancient times: the Babylonians used 3.125 to approximate pi in c. 2000BCE. By the seventeenth century, new methods of mathematical analysis provided better ways of calculating pi, and British mathematicians William Oughtred(1575-1660), Isaac Barrow(1630-77), and David Gregory(1659-1708) all used π as a symbol to describe the circumference of a circle.

"The digits of Pi march to infinity in a predestined yet unfathomable code"
---- Richard Preston, The New Yorker (1992)

In 1706, Welsh mathematician William Jones(1675-1749) - in his "Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos" (A New Introduction to the Mathematics) - defined π as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Swiss mathematician and physicist Leonhard Euler(1707-83) adopted the symbol in around 1736, and π finally came into common usage.

In 1748, Euler's book "Introductio in analysis infinitorum" (Introduction to the Analysis of Infinities) included an important equation known as "Euler's Identity", which incorporated π and related it to the chief symbols in mathematics at that time. In 1910, Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan(1887-1920) developed ways of calculating Pi, and in 1934 the pi symbol π was adopted internationally.
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Source:
"1001 Ideas That Changed the Way We Think"
-- by Robert Arp.

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