Product Description
No number has captured the attention and imagination of numberfanatics and nerds throughout the ages as much as "pi"--the ratio of acircle's circumference to its diameter. The Joy of Pi offers a raretreat for those number fetishists, telling the story of pi and man'sfascination with it, from Archimedes to da Vinci to the modern-dayChudnovsky brothers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (41)

Pi 3.1415926535262384 or something to the like...
I am tired of math textbooks. This little book here has taught me more math than a textbook with PI in it. For PI day, I spent the afternoon reading it. I recommend this for anyone who doesn't want to appreciate it. Maybe you'll change your mind.

`It seems like such a simple problem: draw a square that covers the same area as a circle ..'
'.. using nothing but a straightedge and a compass.'

In this book, David Blatner explores the history of Pi: who has tried to calculate it, and how.This book includes early estimates of the value of pi and the modern quest to find more digits of pi by using computers.The book even includes the first one million digits of pi.

Way back in the last century, I became acquainted with pi.After I left school, I never really needed to think about the value of it beyond the first few decimal places.I can understand the quest to find a pattern and the desire to stress test computers by calculating pi to 51.5 billion places (that was back in 1997).I can learn, and the world has certainly benefitted, from the obsessions of others.

This quirky little book is full of facts about pi, and also provides other sources for those who want to know more.For me this was an interesting and fun read.I think it would be fascinating to many young people learning about the enigma of pi.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

about 1/3 useful and 1/3 interesting
The Joy of Pi is an interesting pamphlet in book form.Blatner has taken a number of cool facts and anecdotes and created a book around it.That and A LOT of filler graphics.Besides the book's small physical format, Blatner gives us about as much information as we would expect in a really good web site.

It is really a good chronology of PI over the millenia.I bought this used for a small price.If you can get it cheap it is fun to read.If you are looking for more serious background on PI, try Beckmann.

The Joy of Pi
Everyone knows a little something about pi.It has something to do with circles.It's about 3.14.It goes on forever.This book adds a bit to those scraps of knowledge, providing a short history and a number of factoids.(And an estimate of pi to, I believe, 100,000 decimal places.)Quick, fun reading for those who find dabbling in mathematics fun.Not, however, a rigorous study of any facet of pi.

This is no Joy
I expected a fanciful, light-hearted assessment of the history, development, and understanding of pi.This book is none of those things.There are myriad books on the topic that are better than this.The typeface and its distracting watermarks and background graphics are annoying.Attemps to deal with historical perspective are amateurish. On page 29, Blatner says, "[In]...the Dark Ages...following the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the rise in power of early Christianity...budding scientific interest in Europe...was effectively quelled by religious intolerance..."This statement is historically inaccurate and appears solely to reflect the author's uninformed religious intolerance.
Not only do "zero" modern historians refer to the middle ages as "dark," but the author himself entitles the chapter "A Millenium of Progress!"David, is it "dark" or is it "progressive?"Please fish or cut bait.Further, the chapter continues to describe how progress was made through dialogue among the different relious and ethnic groups of the era.Not only is the history flawed, but the statements are self-contradictory.Poorly done and not at all funny. ... Read more

Product Description
This book documents the history of pi from the dawn of mathematical time to the present. The story of pi reflects the most seminal, the most serious, and sometimes the most whimsical aspects of mathematics. Much significant mathematics originates with pi, and many great mathematicians have contributed to this story's unfolding. Mathematicians and historians of mathematics will find this book indispensable. Teachers at every level can find here ample resources for anything from individual talks and student projects to special topics courses. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Probably THE collection about all there is to know about Pi!
This book hosts almost all there is to know and is known, about the worlds favorite transcendental constant. ALso many proofs of the nature on pi. e.g. the one by Hilbert and Lindemann. As well as the proof of the irrationality of zeta(3).

Definitely worth the money, and this book should be famous but it isnt!

Mostly for the advanced math person though, but lots of articles for the layman!

Enjoy!

... Read more

Product Description
This is a clever, beautiful book. The authors trace the thread of $\pi$ through the long history of mathematics. In so doing, they touch upon many major subjects in mathematics: geometry (of course), number theory, Galois theory, probability, transcendental numbers, analysis, and, as their crown jewel, the theory of elliptic functions, which connects many of the other subjects. By this device, the authors provide a tour through mathematics, one that mathematicians of all levels, amateur or professional, may appreciate. In many cases, the tour visits well-known topics from particular special interest groups. Remarkably, $\pi$ is often found at the places of deepest beauty. The volume includes many exercises with detailed solutions. Anyone from undergraduate mathematics majors through university professors will find many things to enjoy in this book. ... Read more

Product Description
In the 4,000-year history of research into pi, results have never been as prolific as at present. This book describes, in easy-to-understand language, the latest and most fascinating findings of mathematicians and computer scientists in the field of pi. Attention is focused on new methods of high-speed computation. The accompanying CD-ROM contains the source code of all programs described, algorithms for pi computation, instructions for testing hardware with programs for pi computation, and complete high-precision libraries.

System requirements: HTML document in a standard CD-ROM file system (ISO 9660), platform-independent. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Good introduction to pi
This book, together with the accompanying CD, is directed towards the decimal expansion of the number pi.The authors' account of the history of the development of this topic is illuminating.They discuss the recent results of Kanada's and Borweins', and Ramanujan's.Their exhaustive list of mathematical formulas of pi is helpful.However, if the reader is mathematically oriented, be warned that very few proofs are provided for these formulas.

Indispensable for the Pursuits on Contemporary Pi Calculation
"PI Unleashed" of Jorg Arndt and Christoph Haenel's has seventeen chapters, one appendix, and one CDROM. The first chapter presents a brief history on pi calculation. Generally speaking, we are in the 3rd era of pi calculation, which began around 1980. This era has three major developments. They are the development of high speed: (1) multiplications of large numbers, (2) algorithms on calculating pi, and (3) computers. Since 1980, the number of known pi digits grows twice (200%) per year. The new goal now is to calculate individual digits at the far end of pi. By BBP algorithm, one is able to calculate any digits of pi without calculating any prior digits. The 2nd era began around 1650. Since then the arc tan method dominated the pi calculation until 1980. The method of the 1st era (250BC-1650) is to calculate the circumferences of the two regular polygons placed inside and outside of a circle.

The methods on high speed multiplication for large numbers are introduced on chapter 11. They are the Fast Fourier Transform and Karatsuba multiplication. Chapter 6 through 10 introduces the algorithms. They are the spigot algorithm, Gauss AGM algorithm (a popular algorithm), Ramanujan's algorithm (50 correct decimal places per term), Borweins' algorithms (every iteration generates four to five times more digits than the previous iteration), and the BBP algorithm. Other than supercomputer, the Internet is a valuable computing resource. The binsplit algorithm enables pi to be distribute computed by the computers on the Internet.

The CDROM comes with a few extreme precision library packages. One of them is hfloat. The author of hfloat is Jorg Arndt, which is also one of the authors of the book. The appendix of the book documents the hfloat library. By utilizing the library and the provided algorithms, one is able to calculate pi up to million of digits with ease. The high precision arithmetic is generally the most difficult and the most challenging part of a pi program. The CDROM also comes with a tutorial on how to write a C program on calculating pi without using somebody else high precision library. In such a scenario, one has to write his own high precision function on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root. Other tutorial includes fast Fourier transform.

One may wonder the motivations on calculating trillion of digits of pi. Other than the world record, the digits can be used to test computer system and as a source of new discoveries. In addition, pi appears in many branches of mathematics.

One of many recent pieces on pi
Why the flood of books on pi (do a search, you'll see)? And why calculate its decimal expansion to enormous numbers of places? Is number mysticism having a revival?

Certainly there are many fascinating theorems involving pi, which is one of the two most important transcendental numbers (the other being e) and which shows up unexpectedly in many different branches of mathematics. These books are well worth reading to learn those theorems, those lovely, unexpected formulas, and the interesting history.

If you are a trained mathematician, the best of these books by far is the recent one by Eymard and Lafon, but it is very difficult.

My complaint about all these books is that not one of them proves that pi exists! I meanpi is defined as the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of any circle; in order for that definition to make sense, one must prove that ratio to be constant. But that ratio is only constant in Euclidean geometry, not hyperbolic or elliptic geometries, so the proof depends on the Euclidean parallel postulate and is not at all obvious.

There is a proof in the book by Moise "Elementary Geometry from an Advanced Viewpoint."

This book is a good one, its main competition being the good one by Posamentier and Lehmann.

Have your pi and eat it too
A must have for the pi gourmet. Ever since reading Beckman's "History of Pi" years ago, I have had a love for pi. Finding Blatner's "The Joy of Pi" only added to it. With "Pi-Unleashed", Arndt and Haenel help to sate the appetite for more pi left by the first two books. While Beckman weaves the tale of pi as only he can in his book, and Blatner does indeed bring joy to the pi lover in the way he pulls together so many aspects of pi, Arndt and Haenel help to satisfy the number junkie who likes to experience pi, not just read about it. This book was so good that after giving it a good sniffing, I just had to roll all over in it to get its scent all over me. The book covers the many roads to pi, from the oldest arctangent series and product series to the latest series used for calculating hundreds of billions of digits. For the algorithm junkie, it has 17 whole pages of nothing but pi formulas, followed by thousands of digits of pi in decimal and hexadecimal as well as continued fraction format. The mathematics is deeper than Beckman or Blatner, but nothing beyond college level. The CD that comes with the book contains 400 million digits of pi along with a whole slew of programs on pi or high precision numbers that I just had to dig into. I know I will be spending many weeks chewing on all the wonderful new bones offered in this book. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. When Sir Cumference drinks a potion which turns him into a dragon, his son Radius searches for the magic number known as pi, which will restore him to his former shape. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (19)

Sir Cumference does it again
I absolutely love the Sir Cumference series and was delighted to add yet another book to our collection.These books are well written to tell a great story for younger children, and the older children can uncover great mathematical concepts as they listen to the explanation and work through the problem as well.The books all include a practical view of the mathematical concept as well (at the end of the story).I would definitely recommend this book as well as the others fromt he series:
Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi (A Math Adventure)
Sir Cumference and the First Round Table (A Math Adventure)
Sir Cumference and All the King's Tens: A Math Adventure
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland (A Math Adventure)
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter (Math Adventures)
Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone: A Math Adventure

Great Product!!!
The book was in better condition than I expected of a used book. It looked like new!!

Great Book!
I used this book on Pi Day in my middle school math classroom. My students loved it! I think that it really helped explain why Pi is a constant number and it works for every circle!

Sir Cumference is fearless!
This is a great book. It has lots of mathematical elements while also being fun for middle school students. I, as a math teacher, enjoyed reading this book to my students. The math terms that tie the book together are very creative in the way they are presented. If you are reading this book to a class of middle school students, it will take from ten to fifteen minutes to read completely if the class is attentive. The math described in the book can help students to remember those terms later.

Fun, Funny, and For a Big Age Range
As a fifth/sixth grade teacher, I find all of these "Sir Cumference" books to be interesting to students at every stage of learning about the math concepts they present. This is the one mathematically-flawed book in the series, however, which accounts for the 3 star rating. The young boy, Radius, searches for a cure for his father's unexpected transformation into a dragon, and 3 and 1/7 works as the value for pi needed to restore him to human form. It's a bit nit-picky of me, perhaps, but one of the most essential things a student should learn about pi is that it is a non-terminating decimal value which got a name because it couldn't be accurately quantified. That said, any teacher (or interested parent) could clear up the fuzzy definition. The books are funny, brief, written on a relatively easy level, and -- while most likely to be appreciated fully by students who have already learned the math -- could be enjoyed as stories by even the youngest listeners, as other parent/teacher reviewers have affirmed. This book, like the others, does a good job of using verbal jokes to help secure math vocabulary. ... Read more

Product Description
In this delightful layperson's introduction to one of math's most interesting phenomena, Drs Posamentier and Lehmann review p's history from pre-biblical times to the 21st century, the many amusing and mind-boggling ways of estimating p over the centuries, quirky examples of obsessing about p (including an attempt to legislate its exact value), and useful applications of p in everyday life, including statistics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Fascinating, But Not For Everyone!
I think 'fascinating' is a good word for this book, but it is probably not for everyone. I liked it, but my wife's eyes glaze over when I tell her about it. It is written in an understandable fashion and does not try to snow the average person or go into too much detail. If it did, I would have put it down. The authors are excited about the subject and want to communicate that excitement to the readers. I think they did a good job of it, but the fact is that you really have to be a math fan to like this book.

Let me give you a flavor of the book.For example, by how much would the addition of a single meter to an imaginary band about the earth raise that band above the earth? If you would say something like a micrometer, that would be a good intuitive answer (at least what I would have said) but incorrect. The surprising answer (which I will let the book reveal) has nothing to do with how big the original circle is, but relates instead to only how much the circumference is changed and the constant of pi.

The book gives a history of how pi is calculated, all the way back to Archimedes and, later, Euler who might have been the most brilliant mind in the history of math. His famous formula the natural log e raised to the power of pi times i = -1 was mentioned in the book and well it should have. How does an irrational number raised to an irrational, imaginary power result in a real, rational number? In passing, the book explored how an imaginary number ofi raised to the power ofi can come out to a real number. (This involves natural log e being raised to a power of pi). Where did these amazing formulas and continued fractions for pi come from? Some of the formulas are astounding! It is also shown that pi is related to integers in certain formulas that have nothing to do with circles!

This information is amazing, at least to me; and I'mmore amazed by the brilliant minds that thought this stuff up!

Good effort
A previous reviewer has already given a synopsis of this book. The book belongs in the libraries of high schools and junior colleges, and would be a worthy addition there. It is relatively non-technical, and perhaps inevitably so, as the authors are not professional mathematicians, but rather "mathematics educators."

A faster, more technical, and more complete work is, "Pi Unleashed", by Arndt and Haenel, and published by Springer (ISBN 3540665722).

(3.141592653589793238462643383279502884...) REVEALED!!!
+++++

This book, by Professors Alfred Posamentier and Igmar Lehmann, reveals the mystery behind the constant number Pi.It is designated by the symbol of the sixteenth lower-case letter of the Greek alphabet and is formally calculated by dividing the circumference of any circle by its diameter.Its value is (3.14...) or approximately (22/7).

This book convinced me that Pi is special and comes up in the most unexpected places.The mathematics needed to fully understand this easy-to-read, informative, engaging, and fun book is "no more...than that of high school mathematics."Large, helpful diagrams accompany all mathematical explanations.

This book consists of nine chapters:

(1) Tells the reader what Pi is and how it achieved its current prominence.
(2) Takes the reader through a brief history of the evolution of Pi.This history goes back four thousand years.
(3) Provides various methods for arriving at Pi's value.A wide variety of methods have been chosen, "some precise, some experimental, and some just good
guessing."
(4) Centers on activities and findings by mathematicians and math hobbyists who have explored the value of Pi and related fields in ways that the ancient mathematicians would never have dreamed of.
(5) Explores some of the curious phenomena that focus on the value and concept of Pi.Primarily here is how Pi relates to other famous numbers and to seemingly unrelated concepts.
(6) Is dedicated to some applications of Pi.The lesson from this chapter is that Pi is ubiquitous -- it always comes up!
(7) Presents some fascinating relationships involving Pi and circles.
(8) This is the book's epilogue.Here, we are presented with Pi to 100,000 decimal places (which uses up almost thirty pages).
(9) This is an afterword by Dr. Herbert Hauptman who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1985.He is known "as the first mathematician to win a Nobel Prize."

This book also presents little unknown things about Pi.For example, did you know that there is a Pi song?How many decimal places has Pi been calculated (as of 2002)?There is even a Pi day, a specific month and day in which this number is celebrated!(From the information presented above, a reader of this review should be able to figure out the exact month and day.)

After reading this book, the reader should definitely and confidently be able to say what Pi is.

Finally, this book does tell you everything (and I mean everything) about Pi but I was surprised (especially since the afterword is by a Nobel Laureate in chemistry) that there is no mention of the chemical bond called the "pi bond."It is called this because of its shape.In physics, there are elementary particles called "pi-mesons" or "pions."

In conclusion, this book takes the mystery out of the mysterious number Pi.If you're like me and like exploring mysteries, then this is the book for you!!

(first published 2004; acknowledgments; preface; 7 chapters; epilogue; main narrative 245 pages; afterword; four appendices; references; index)

+++++
... Read more

Product Description
The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane is a self-contained text for junior, senior, and first-year graduate courses. Historical material is interwoven with a rigorous ruler- and protractor axiomatic development of the Euclidean and hyperbolic planes. Additional topics include the classical axiomatic systems of Euclid and Hilbert, axiom systems for three and four dimensional absolute geometry, and Pieri's system based on rigid motions. Models, such as Taxicab Geometry, are used extensively to illustrate theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wonderfully clear and complete
Though perfectly clear to the mathematician, Non-Euclidean geometry is surronded by an aura of mystery and mistrust among the general public, and even a good many mathematicians would be hard pressed to explain exactly how the negation of the parallel postulate leads to all those strange formulas teeming with hyperbolic functions and other exotica. G.E. Martin explains everything beautifully, with exemplary clarity and just the right amount of detail. The reader also gets a complete construction of Euclidean geometry starting with the Birkhoff-Halsted axiom system, as well as a wealth of historical information into the bargain. Every serious math major or amateur ought to read this book, and many a professional could well benefit from it. ... Read more

Product Description
This book aims at introducing the reader with some high school mathematics, to both the higher and the more fundamental developments of the basic themes of elementary mathematics. Most chapters begin with a series of elementary problems, behind whose diverting formulation more advanced mathematical ideas lie hidden. These are then made explicit and further developemnts of them explored, thereby deepending and broadening the reader's understanding of mathematics -- enabling him or her to see mathematics as a hologram. The book arose from a course for potential high school teachers of mathematics taught for several years at St. Petersburg University, and nearly every chapter ends with an interesting commentary on the relevance of its subject matter to the actual classroom setting. However, it can be recommended to a much wider readership; even the professional mathematician will derive much pleasureable instruction from reading it. ... Read more

Product Description
Pi to One Hundred Thousand Places is the ultimate book for those who are fans of this important mathematical constant which is approximately measured to 3.14159. In Euclidean geometry, Pi represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. What can one do with a book of the complete sequence of pi rounded to 100,000 places? You can impress your friends with this unique book. You can have math memory competitions with friends and family to see who can remember sequences of pi better. You can even use the pi sequences to help build and grow your own brains memory abilities! This is not just a book for nerds and geeks, but Pi to One Hundred Thousand Places is for all mankind! Don't miss out on getting your own paperback copy of this unique publication. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I want another slice of Pi!
Great book! I hope this doesn't ruin anything, but my favorite parts were 58537. I also really liked 7317328! I can't wait for the movie version!!! ... Read more

Product Description
Plenty of people claim to have theories that will change science. What’s rare is for other scientists to take one of these claims seriously. Laurence H.P. is the most famous scientist alive today who has solved the most famous unsolved problem in pure mathematics! He states that pi (the ration of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) is the exact ration equal to 3.125. A Canadian born in 1973, he was a mathematician’s child. Raised in that environment, he could not handle the fact that pi was not a rational number. So as a little boy, he made a list of all the things he wanted to do when he grew up, and discovering the exact value of pi was the first of them. He discovered a secret that will cause science textbooks to be rewritten! This is your “Pi BIBLE”! ... Read more

Product Description
The mysterious ratio Pi: Why does a circle's circumference relate to its diameter in such an arbitrary way? All that this book contains is a quarter million digits of this ever-patternless number. Give this as a gag gift to a mathematician, engineer, or a computer scientist, or keep it as a reminder of the beautiful mysteries of this strange world that we live in. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great book!!!
If you love math, long scrolling numbers, and have nothing for your coffee table this is a must buy! ... Read more

Product Description
Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Gauss-legendre Algorithm, Liu Hui's Π Algorithm, Bailey-borwein-plouffe Formula, Wallis Product, Leibniz Formula for Pi, Buffon's Needle, Borwein's Algorithm, Machin-Like Formula, Bellard's Formula, Chudnovsky Algorithm. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Liu Hui's algorithm is a mathematical algorithm invented by Liu Hui (fl. 3rd century), a mathematician of Wei Kingdom. Before his time, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to diameter was often taken experimentally as 3 in China, while Zhang Heng (78139) rendered it as 3.1724 (from the proportion of the celestial circle to the diameter of the earth, ) or as . Liu Hui was not satisfied with ; he commented that it was too large and overshot the mark. Another mathematician Wan Fan (219257) provided . All these empirical values were accurate to 2 digits (i.e. 1 decimal place). Liu Hui was the first Chinese mathematician to provide a rigorous algorithm for calculation of to any accuracy. Liu Hui's own calculation with a 96-gon provided an accuracy of 5 digits: 3.1416. Liu Hui remarked in his commentary to the The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, that the ratio of the circumference of an inscribed hexagon to the diameter of the circle was 3, hence must be greater than 3. He went on to provide a detailed step-by-step description of an iterative algorithm to calculate to any required accuracy based on bisecting polygons; he calculated to between 3.141024 and 3.142708 with a 96-gon; he suggested that 3.14 was a good enough approximation, and expressed as 157/50; he admitted that this number was a bit small. Later he invented an ingenious quick method to improve on it, and obtained 3.1416 with only a 96-gon, with an accuracy comparable to that from a 1536-gon. His most important contribution i...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=17829294 ... Read more