Magic Roadshow

10 Stunning Images Show the Beauty Hidden in Pi..

March 14th, 2015 was ‘Pi Day’. That was reason enough for Ana Swanson to write a very informative article on the intricate and astonishing science behind the number  ‘p’, commonly called ‘pi’.. Circles play an integral part in our lives. The world is round, other planets and stars are round. And when you work your way down the list of objects known to man, the circle shape stands singularly as the shape of shapes. Even objects as beautiful and diverse as snowflakes consist of millions of tiny round water particles, which form the jagged crystals which bind to form a flake.

If you measure the distance across a circle, then divide that number into the distance around a circle.. you get  3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749
445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066
470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385….. or, what we call ‘ pi ‘. Pi doesn’t end there;  It goes on and on and on.. creating what some call ‘total randomness’., and what others call ‘ proof that God exist..’.  If you note the first five numbers.. 3.1415, you understand the significates behind 3/14/15 being a very special ‘pi day’.  (And, if you don’t believe in coincidences, just ignore that Albert Einstein was born on March 14th.)

If you divide, let’s say 2 into 7, your sum is 3.5. No more, no less. No long tail of numbers. Yet pi doesn’t seem to have an end. It’s what we call an irrational number and cannot be expressed exactly. Mathematicians have calculated pi beyond 13.3 trillion numbers. And, despite pi appearing completely random, there is hope that one day, in an instantaneous revelation, a number will fall into place and the face of God, or perhaps a geometric configuration of unfathomable beauty, will be revealed. Carl Sagan, in his popular novel, Contact, suggested the  creator of all may have hidden a cryptic message within the digits of pi.

In these ten pictures, Martin Krzywinski and Cristian Vasile connect the numbers to create art, utilizing what they call bioinformatics. Have a look and gaze inside infinity…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/14/10-stunning-images-show-the-beauty-hidden-in-pi/

From Issue#165 of the Magic Roadshow