The "Math Pi Symbol"
We know the math pi symbol can be very confusing for beginning math students,
but don't worry, its not that bad. The pi symbol is really just a letter
of the Greek alphabet. It's pronounced "pie" but written as pi.
The symbol looks like this: ð.
In math, ð is always equal to the number 3.1415926...
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A Delicious
Dessert |
The Greek Letter
Pi |
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Understanding why we need
Pi |
Pi represents the circumference of a circle with radius equal to 0.5.
Therefore, pi will be used a lot for formulas involving circles. Look at
the figure at the right.
The distance around this circle equals pi. In other words, if the
measurements were in miles, we would have to walk a little more than 3.14 miles
to walk around the outside of our circle. Think about it as walking around
a track - a track that is a perfect circle.
Area = ðr2 Circumference = 2ðr
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Facts about "The Math Pie
Symbol" |
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ð is the lowercase Greek letter pi - the 16th letter
of the alphabet.
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ð is an irrational number, meaning its decimals goes
on forever...
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ð = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510...
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Pi occurs in many scientific formulas, like DNA, navigation, & more.
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The Babylonians found the first known value of pi in 2000 BC (25/8).
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The Bible uses pi with a value of 3 instead of 3.1415...
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Ahmes the scribe was the first to write about pi in 1650 BC.
So how many digits of the
math pi symbol
can you memorize?
Return to other
free geometry help topics.
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