MsNBC meets CECM: a 3.14 min movie on Pi (67Mb - HUGE) and snapshots

Latest Computational Record (2002) Previous Record (1999) "The Life of Pi"(Feb 2003, PDF) and Favorite Math Constants

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920)

SPEAKER: Jonathan M. Borwein Shrum Professor of Science, FRSC Simon Fraser University Burnaby BC, V5A 1S6 Canada www.cecm.sfu.ca/personal/jborwein

Director CECM

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3

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15 92...

IS PROVABLY IRRATIONAL (PS & PDF),

AND IS VERY DEFINITELY NOT 22/7

(See also the Colour Calculator.)

ABSTRACT. The story of pi reflects the most seminal, the most serious and sometimes the silliest aspects of mathematics. A surprising amount of the most important mathematics and a significant number of the most important mathematicians have contributed to its unfolding -- directly or otherwise.

Pi is one of the few concepts in mathematics whose mention evokes a response of recognition and interest in those not concerned professionally with the subject. It has been a part of human culture and the educated imagination for more than twenty five hundred years.

The computation of Pi is virtually the only topic from the most ancient stratum of mathematics that is still of serious interest to modern mathematical research. And to pursue this topic as it developed throughout the millennia is to follow a thread through the history of mathematics that winds through geometry, analysis and special functions, numerical analysis, algebra and number theory. It offers a subject which provides mathematicians with examples of many current mathematical techniques as well as a palpable sense of their historical development.

From Pi: a Source Book by Berggren, Borwein and Borwein (1997).
(See also Mathland, August 2, 1997.)

MY TALK: will provide witness to many of these claims and will be presented partly over the Internet. Indeed, we will compute a hundred billion digits of Pi -- during the lecture.

As a start here are some Web Bios, a Pi Trivia Quiz and some LINKS:

PAPERS and TALKS on Pi and much more are also to be found on PETER BORWEIN'S PAGES SLIDES on Pi and ITS COMPUTATION (`93, Postscript) SLIDES on the FORTY BILLION'th DIGIT of Pi (`96, Postscript)

NINE HUNDRED DIGITS OF PI