What is PI?
In our society, pi is dealt with a bit in math class, but not much
more than that. For most people, this brings up the immediate question,
"What is pi?" Pi is a very cool number that describes a circle. This
means for one thing that if you take the diameter of a circle (the segment that
goes from one side to the other cutting across the center) and multiply it by
pi, you get the circumference of the circle (the distance around the outside).
There are other formulas you can use pi with too. So, pi is a weird number that
somehow or other always can help you find distances pertaining to a circle.
The
next question that may arise is, "Why is it called pi instead of a number
that I can count like 3.1415?" Actually, 3.1415 is the beginning of pi;
however, it goes on farther than that, in fact it goes on forever. Pi has no
end! There are computers as we speak that are spitting out numbers of pi that
they calculate using formulas called algorithms. Another neat thing about pi is
that no pattern ever appears twice in the number. "How do you know that if
the number goes on forever? It might repeat somewhere." Actually, we are
sure it doesn't repeat anywhere as mathematicians have worked out formulas that
mathematically prove it, and in math, once you have proof of something, there's
no easily way to prove otherwise, it is pretty much fact.
Interesting Pi Links:
http://www.winternet.com/~mchristi/piday.html
http://www.jgk.org/links/pi-more.html
http://www.wpdpi.com/index.shtml
http://www.astro.univie.ac.at/~wasi/PI/pi_club.html
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTop...
http://www.facade.com/Fun/amiinpi/
Pi Activities:
Find the decimal of the whole class, the percent of
the entire class and then multiply each decimal by 360 degrees to find the size
of the circle graph that that section will represent.
Favorite |
No. of Students |
Decimal |
Percent |
Degrees |
Baseball |
11 |
0.44 |
44% |
158.4 |
Basketball |
6 |
0.24 |
24% |
86.4 |
Football |
7 |
0.28 |
28% |
100.8 |
Hockey |
1 |
0.04 |
4% |
14.4 |
Draw a circle and using your protractor section off
each sport using the correct number of degrees from the table above.
Other Survey Ideas: