East meets West
The value of Pi
In the Ganitapada, the second part of the text Aryabhatteeyam, Aryabhatta gives the methods for determining for determining square root cube and cube root of a given number. while giving the formulae for finding areas and volumes of some of the geometrical objects, he also gives the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, which is nothing but the value of Pi.
Chaturadhikam shatamashtagunam dvashashtistatha sahasranam ,
ayutadvayavishkambhasyaasanno vrttaparinaahah .
One hundred and four multiplied by eight and added to sixty-two thousand will be the approximate ( asanna ) perimeter of a circle whose diameter is twenty thousand.
104 X 8 +62,000 = 20,000 Pi ( 2 Pi R )
62832 / 20,000 = Pi
so Pi = 3.1416.
By explicitly using the word approximate, the author suggests that the number is irrational.The value of Pi given here turns out to be equal to 3.1416
A milestone in the history of mathematics 1
1 comment:
Incredible how mathematically advanced our ancestors were! pi is so simply yet completely described!
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