Pi

[deposition]

damn, didnt think it would be that complicated...although i guess i get the gist of it

[peregrine]

one of my highschool math teachers told a story of 3 mathematicians (grandfather-father-son relation) who dedicated their lives to finding more digits to Pi in the... 1500-1600's? I think. Anyways, the story goes that the 3rd one found out that his grandfather had made a mistake VERY early on in the calculation, hence, their result, and lives, were pretty much useless.

That's gotta suck.

dunno how true that is, but it was relevant in an amusing way.

[Omeganitros]

While we're at it, anyone read Life of Pi? Great book.

[nickadeemus]

What would happen if our way of doing math was completely different. We had a differen't form of calculating amounts, used different "number" values, just happened to come up with a different way to look at things. Just what's been going through my head as I read this.

[Ice-Dragon]

That's the great thing about math. Most of it is not open to different interpretations, it is based on a set of proven rules/theorys. Even if we used different "number values", in essence it would still be the same.

Ex. 2X + 3Y = 0

Let a = the conversion factor between our old numbers and new numbers, assuming we had different "number values"

Becomes ---> 2aX + 3aY = 0
which is equivalent to ---> 2X + 3Y = 0

Most parts of math are definite; so no matter how we looked at it we would still come up with the same theories/rules.

[Nightstar]

nah, we use base 10 math, i think he means if we used like base 5, or did math in roman numerals, or like the egyptians

[Ice-Dragon]

Well yeah it would look different but what I was trying to say was... even if we used some kind of different form like perhaps base 5 or roman numerals, if there were a way of somehow converting the rules and theories developed under that system into base 10, they would appear the exact same.

For example, the relation between the radius of a circle and the circumference of a circle will always remain the same. It is simply a property of a circle. No matter what number system it is written in, the relation between those two things will never change.

[alainbryden]

damn, didnt think it would be that complicated...although i guess i get the gest of it

gist.

bored.[/b]

[Thingy]

phi is one "h" of a lot cooler than pi
pi is just A ratio.
phi is THE ratio.

but i do think that e is the coolest and most important of them all.
Just think of what we wouldnt have if we didnt have ln or e^x.

[deposition]

gist.

raddle raddle thunder cladder boom boom bam! dont worry see the car x man!!

[talisman]

there are other functions that are their own derivatives than just e^x.

I think pretty much everything in the form of ae^x will work, where a is a nonzero constant.

[deposition]

Wish i would have paid a little bit more attention when physics teacher was talking about derivitives.

[alainbryden]

physics? try gr. 11 calculus.

[deposition]

He tought us about derivitives in physics...
and uhh its grade 11 physics normally for my school
and our school teaches pre-calc at grade 11.

[AasumDude]

Pi is a circe. Is that not important enough?

pi is not a circle. Pi is the rato of a circle's circumfrence to its diameter. and i only know 3.2425926535897932384626433832795028841971