The Problem of Infinite Pi(e)

Curious Cases

BBC

Technology, Science

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2022

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hungry for pi? Chow down on this! Pi is the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Sounds dull – but pi turns out to have astonishing properties and crop up in places you would never expect. For a start, it goes on forever and never repeats, meaning it probably contains your name, date of birth, and the complete works of Shakespeare written in its digits. Maths comedian Matt Parker stuns Adam with his ‘pie-endulum’ experiment, in which a chicken and mushroom pie is dangled 2.45m to form a pendulum which takes *exactly* 3.14 seconds per swing. Mathematician Dr Vicky Neale explains how we can be sure that the number pi continues forever and never repeats - despite the fact we can never write down all its digits to check! She also makes the case that aliens would probably measure angles using pi because it’s a fundamental constant of the universe. NASA mission director Dr Marc Rayman drops in to explain how pi is used to navigate spacecraft around the solar system. And philosopher of physics Dr Eleanor Knox serves up some philoso-pi, revealing why some thinkers have found pi’s ubiquity so deeply mysterious. Hannah grins with delight for most of show. It’s all maths! Producer: Ilan Goodman Contributors: Matt Parker, Dr Vicky Neale, Dr Marc Rayman, Dr Eleanor Knox

Transcript

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0:00.0	Episode four, now this is one for you and not for me.
0:04.8	Because it's not, it's not really episode four, it's episode 3.1.
0:07.9	Oh, it's a pie special. I've just got to suck it up.
0:12.5	You know what though, I have a really good feeling about this, Adam.
0:14.9	I strongly suspect Adam that by the end of this recording,
0:18.4	you sir will have had an epiphany.
0:21.5	It's a greedy pie question this week from Alex Wolsham sent into QSK.
0:32.5	It's cases at BBC.co.uk. Did you say greedy?
0:35.0	Greedy, it's actually four questions and I'm taking a back seat because you are going to like this.
0:39.7	This is pure maths, it is a delicious pie.
0:42.4	He writes, I have never truly understood pie.
0:45.5	Well, rest easy my young padawan. We have a pie Jedi on the team.
0:50.6	Certainly do. Question one, how do we discover pie?
0:53.5	Question two, how do we discover its use in measuring radius and circumference of circles?
0:58.8	Frankly, Alex, there is quite a lot of overlap there between questions one and two.
1:02.4	Question three, how do we know that pie goes on infinitely?
1:05.8	And question four, how do we know it never repeats?
1:08.3	There you go, it's a pie special, you like?
1:10.1	You know what, I actually think that we should dedicate some proper time to this.
1:12.9	I think we should do a 42-part special of rather third and fry,
1:17.9	although admittedly mainly fry. It would be mostly fry and that is fine by me.
1:22.4	But you know what pie is though, don't you?
	...

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