Slicing Pi

We all know pi—the transcendental number you get when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter.  This most monumental and incredibly ennobling invention came to us from the Greeks. But the idea that the relationship between the circumference of a circle and its diameter comes out to a little more than 3, goes back even further—to the innovative geometers of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, India, and again, those creative Greeks.

But calculate all you want, you will never get the number we understand to be pi, because pi never ends. Over the course of human history, folks have worked out pi from one to several billion decimal places. But in the real world--when you need to know how much fence to ring around your swimming pool, for example--it makes sense to round off pi somewhere, like 3.14.

Pi is a number, if we can call it a number, that can't be known. Like its transcendental sisters, pi helps us when we apply it, but we can't see pi in the same way we can see two mathematicians or three inventors or a crowd of a thousand innovators at a creativity convention. In a sense, especially if you can't comprehend the mathematical proof that defines pi, you just have to believe that it's what it is.

This leap of faith has inspired some unusually creative approaches to pi from some quarters. In 1 Kings 7:23 the circumference of a vessel is described as roughly three times its diameter. This particular approximation drives some people to distraction. You may find it amusing to read the sleight of mind and linguistic gymnastics Biblical literalists have conjured up to justify the fact that the author of Kings probably possessed only a rudimentary understanding the diameter-circumference ratio. Or simply decided to approximate.

The point missed is that all knowledge is approximate and, in the end, all knowledge is provisional.

Creative individuals understand this or act as if they do when they challenge assumptions, wander off into uncharted territory, dream impossible dreams, dare to flaunt convention, take on Herculean tasks, or begin work based on bold approximations. How else? To go where no man has gone before?

In other words, you can't have your pi and eat it, too. But you can read the book The Joy of Pi.

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