The value of pi (off topic and into mathematical esoterica)

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---Xianapol@aol.com wrote:

[slice]

  Pi

> is irrational.  In other words, it is a decimal that goes on and on

and on and

> never ends or repeats.  It is

> 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944

> 592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647

> 093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559

> 64462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823 to just a few

digits.  You

> can get it to 50000 digits at

www.ccsf.caltech.edu/~roy/pi.50000.html.  It has

> been calculated by supercomputers to millions of digits.


BRYCE
I thought that pi could only be determined by experimental
observation.  Last I heard, it was out to a billion digits.

XIANA
  So, why didn't God

> just dedicate an infinitely large book just to tell us the

comparatively

> unimportant information of the circumference a pool.  The truth is

that

> anywhere you chose to terminate pi you are introducing an

inaccuracy.  3 is

> fine for an approximation, especially if it is something reasonable

picky like

> the circumference of a pool.


BRYCE
     Actually, using the word 'approximately' would have better served
the author, while saving on paper.  But the text makes no indication
of an approximation.
[note:  I'm still about fifty messages behind, so I apologize if
someone has beaten me to the punch.]

XIANA

> 	Second, the scripture says that the pool was circular in shape.  It

does not

> say that it was a perfect and absolutely flawless circle, accurate

to a ten

> billionth of a cubit in circumference.  In fact, I challenge you do

draw an

> absolutely perfect circle with just one pencil and a piece of paper

(no

> compass or other apparatus). You can't draw it, much less dig it.  For

> something to be "circular in shape" it only needs to appear to the

eye to be a

> circle.  It may have really been 30 cubits around.  My guess is that

I gave

> you piece of chalk and a parking lot and asked you to draw me a 10

cubit

> diameter (about 15 ft) circle, then we measured the circumference, you

> probably could not, unaided, do much better than they did, if you

did better

> at all.


BRYCE
     Why do we need to attempt it "unaided?"  Wouldn't that be placing
a limitation on ourselves that the ancient craftsmen were free to
ignore?  What evidence is there that they only "eyeballed" their
measurements during the forging of the pool?  

==
Bryce Anderson
http://members.tripod.com/~Idafab/index.html

How can it be tourist season if we can't shoot them?



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