History

Pi or is a ma thema tical cons tan t whose va lue is the ra tio of any circle' s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space; this is the same value as the ratio of a circle's area to the square of its radius. It is approximately equal to 3.14159 in the usual decimal notation. is one of the most important mathematical and physical constants: many formulae from mathematics, science, and engineering involve . is a n irration al number, which means that its valu e cann ot be exp ressed ex a ctly a s a fraction m/n, where m and n a re in tegers. Consequently, its decimal representation never ends or repeats. It is also a transcendental number, which means that no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers (powers, roots, sums, etc.)can be equal to its value; proving this was a late achievement in mathematical history and a significant result of 19th century German mathematics. Throughout the history of mathematics, there has been much effort to determin e more accu ra tely a nd to understand its nature; fascination with the number has even carried over into non-mathematical culture. The Greek letter , often spelled outpi in text, was adopted for the number from th e G reek w ord for perimeter " ", firs t b y William Jon es in 1707, and popularized by Leonhard Euler in 1737. The constant is occasionally also referred to as the circular constant, Archimedes' constant (not to be confused with an Archimedes number), or Lud olp h's numb er (from a German ma thema ticia n wh ose efforts to calculate more of its digits became famous).

The name of the Greek letter is pi, and th is spelling is commonly us ed in typographical contexts when the Greek letter is not available, or its usage could be problematic. It is not normally capitalized ( ) even at the beginning of a sentence. When referring to this constant, the symbol is always pronounced like "pie" in English, which is the conventional English pronunciation of the Greek letter. In Greek, the name of this letter is pronounced /pi/. The constant is named " " because " " is the first letter of the Greek words (periphery) and (perimeter), probably referring to its use in the formula to find the circumference, or perimeter, of a circle. is Unicode character U+03C0 ("Greek small letter pi").