Infinite series also assist our understanding of rational numbers, more commonly referred to as fractions. So by defining the right sequence, mathematicians were able to calculate pi to an increasing number of decimal places. Adding an infinite sequence of ever-smaller fractions like this can bring you closer and closer to a number with an infinite number of digits after the decimal point – just like pi. An infinite series is the total of all the numbers in a sequence that goes on forever, for example ½ + ¼ + ⅛ + and so on. In the pages of his Synopsis, Jones also showed his familiarity with the notion of an infinite series and how it could help calculate pi far more accurately than was possible just by drawing and measuring circles. Photo via Synopsis palmariorum matheseos_ It is commonly thought that he chose pi either because it is the first letter of the word for periphery (περιφέρεια) or because it is the first letter of the word for perimeter (περίμετρος), or both.įinding pi. That was why he recognised the number needed its own symbol. This meant it could never be “expressed in numbers”, as he put it. We typically think of this number as being about 3.14, but Jones rightly suspected that the digits after its decimal point were infinite and non-repeating. In it is the first recorded use of the symbol π as the number that gives the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Shortly afterwards he published Synopsis palmariorum matheseos, a summary of the current state of the art developments in mathematics which reflected his own particular interests. On his return to Britain he began to teach maths in London, possibly starting by holding classes in coffee shops for a small fee. After attending a charity school, Jones landed a job as a merchant’s accountant and then as a maths teacher on a warship, before publishing A New Compendium of the Whole Art of Navigation, his first book in 1702 on the mathematics of navigation. This all changed thanks to William Jones who was born in 1674 in the parish of Llanfihangel Tre’r Beirdd. Yet even after mathematicians worked out how to calculate pi accurately to over 100 decimal places at the start of the 18th century, we didn’t have an agreed symbol for the number. But it’s also a number that crops up across all scientific disciplines from cosmology to thermodynamics. It allows you to calculate the circumference and area of a circle from its diameter (and vice versa). The importance of the number we now call pi has been known about since ancient Egyptian times. The Welsh Government has even renamed Pi Day (on March 14 or 3/14, which matches the first three digits of pi, 3.14) as “ Pi Day Cymru”. It comes from the pen of an 18th century farmer’s son and largely self-taught mathematician from the small island of Anglesey in Wales. One of the most important numbers in maths might today be named after the Greek letter π or “pi”, but the convention of representing it this way actually doesn’t come from Greece at all.
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