The Joy of Pi | 
 enlarge | Author: David Blatner
Publisher: Walker & Company
Category: Book
List Price: $14.00
Buy Used: $2.99
You Save: $11.01 (79%)
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 153549
Media: Paperback
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 144
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6 x 6 x 0.5
ISBN: 0802775624
Dewey Decimal Number: 516.22
EAN: 9780802775627
Publication Date: September 1, 1999
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Product Description
No number has captured the attention and imagination of people throughout the ages as much as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi–or ? as it is symbolically known–is infinite and, in The Joy of pi, it proves to be infinitely intriguing. With incisive historical insight and a refreshing sense of humor, David Blatner explores the many facets of pi and humankind's fascination with it–from the ancient Egyptians and Archimedes to Leonardo da Vinci and the modern-day Chudnovsky brothers, who have calculated pi to eight billion digits with a homemade supercomputer. The Joy of Pi is a book of many parts. Breezy narratives recount the history of pi and the quirky stories of those obsessed with it. Sidebars document fascinating pi trivia (including a segment from the 0. J. Simpson trial). Dozens of snippets and factoids reveal pi's remarkable impact over the centuries. Mnemonic devices teach how to memorize pi to many hundreds of digits (or more, if you're so inclined). Pi-inspired cartoons, poems, limericks, and jokes offer delightfully "square" pi humor. And, to satisfy even the most exacting of number jocks, the first one million digits of pi appear throughout the book. A tribute to all things pi, The Joy of pi is sure to foster a newfound affection and respect for the big number with the funny little symbol.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 History of a Mystery January 27, 2000
rareoopdvds (San Diego, CA United States)
14 out of 19 found this review helpful
David Blatners book on the history of Pi is inspiring and concise. Going through the history, East and West, where the reader the will discover all the errors in formulating this most mysterious infinite number. Blatner also discusses how to remember the number, if need be, as well as some tidbits of information where pi has shown up, either in movies or books or wherever. The book essentially avoids mathematical equations, although they are displayed to those that understand them, the book is written so anyone can appreciate the the work involved in getting to pi. A fun read and reccomended as an introduction to finding the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter of a circle.
Pi ain't square December 30, 1999
M KIRK-DUGGAN (El Cerrito Fellowship, CA USA)
20 out of 26 found this review helpful
What a delightful book: exemplary in its depth, and fascinating in the writing. As an undergraduate math major, I have been in love with numbers, the lore of numbers, and the history of numbers, and this easy to read but tantalizing in its depth, shows that my passion has not been in vein. I particularly enjoyed the psychology of the pi seekers. It is almost too good for its audience, and should be enjoyed by all ages at all levels. The description of the savants who memorize thousands of digits is memorable. To think of a billion digits without a repeat or a pattern gives me awe. Yet the concept is so simple as to be obvious. I intend to give this to my granddaughter when she turns six.
Brief but filled with fun facts February 11, 2002
mrliteral (Woodland Hills, CA United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book contains the first million digits of pi. At first, this is intriguing, but after a hundred digits or so, it gets a little tedious, and after the first thousand it's a struggle. Nonetheless I got to the conclusion, and was pleasantly surprised to find out the last digit was 1.Seriously, this is a fun book filled with interesting facts about this transcendental number. It is a history of the struggles to find this number with greater and greater precision, but it is also a grab bag of other material showing pi's "ability" to show up in unlikely places. The presentation of the book is a bit flawed, almost causing this book to lose a star. In particular, some of the text is hard to read because it is on top of an illustration. Since this probably as much the fault of the publisher as the writer, however, I won't rate this lower that five stars. If you enjoy math, this is a fun little diversion, and you might even learn a thing or two in the process.
Great! March 5, 2006
Michael F. McPartlan (Buffalo, NY USA)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is a delightful little book about everyone's favorite number (sorry "e"). Blatner explains the history of pi, attempts throughout the ages to compute pi to hundreds (and then billions) of digits, and the exploits of nerds (much like myself, but smarter) to memorize pi to thousands of digits. There is no heavy math involved; reading this book is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon!
History of a number is a history of mathematical thought May 11, 2006
Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States(cashbacher@yahoo.com))
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This is a delightful little book covering the history of pi, the most famous number in mathematics. Unlike some other books, the advances made in East Asia throughout history are also mentioned. To me, the most fascinating aspect covered appears on pages 104 and 105. They chronicle the bill that went through the Indiana legislature in 1897 that would have required schools in the state to teach a grossly inaccurate value of pi and that everyone outside the state would have to pay royalties to use this value. The bill mandating this passed the Indiana House of Representatives unanimously. Fortunately, a math professor was visiting the legislature on that day and learned what had transpired. The bill became bogged down in the Indiana Senate and was eventually tabled. It appears that no action has been taken on it since that time.
The other elements of the history of pi are not quite so wild, but certainly are interesting. Until the middle of the twentieth century, advances in the knowledge of the number of digits of pi have mirrored progress in mathematics. Recently, the advances have mirrored progress in computer science. At this time, one of the best ways to test hardware performance is to run a program that computes the digits of pi.
I really enjoyed this book and recommend it as light reading in the history of mathematics. It would also make an excellent resource for presentations in the history of mathematics.
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