This week’s recommendation comes from:
Joe Dostilio
Math Fellow
Joe says, “Pi Day is always a special day for math. With Pi Day 2023 approaching, I wanted to share a video that chronicles how pi has been calculated throughout history. It’s pretty mathy and very visual to help with understanding Pascal’s triangle and all the calculus. Happy Pi Day 2023!”
The Discovery That Transformed Pi
Derek Muller and Alex Kontorovich
“For me this is a story about how the obvious way of doing things is not always the best way and that it is often a good idea to play around with patterns and push them beyond the bounds where you expect them to work. Because a little bit of insight and mathematics can go a very long way.” – Derek Muller and Alex Kontorovich
For thousands of years, mathematicians were calculating pi the obvious but numerically inefficient way. Then Newton came along and changed the game. Check out this video on the different ways pi has been calculated over the years.
Also, check out last year’s Pi Day IFL Recommends that has a link to another video on the history of pi, as well as some classroom resources.