Pi asked me for Ed’s old hairbrush, so I humoured him and brought it. He said, “Bell, I think there might be a cure for EMOs!”
*
Still not EMO, although Ed keeps trying to bite me. Awkward!
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Okay, I confess: Pi is my favourite character.
His real name is Peter, but he took the name Pi after discovering (age five) what it meant. Pi the number is roughly 3.1415986535 (I think it repeats – but only after several thousand decimal places). The symbol looks like a wobbly table (I bet there’s a way to type it, but not one that I know). It’s very handy for heaps of circle-related things in maths (for example 2 x pi x the radius will get you the circumfrence of a circle).
Pi himself is short for his age, short-sighted, and has sticky-uppy hair due to the fact that he rarely remembers to brush it. He’s not based on anything from “Twilight”. If he’s based on anything, it’s the mad scientists from the “Girl Genius” comic book series. They’re the type of people that wake up one morning to find a giant chainsaw-wielding robot beside the bed – and have to figure out what they made it for (and how to survive until breakfast).
Except for the superpower-type intellect, Pi is the character I most relate to.
Eek! Pi does not repeat! Pi is a special kind of number known as a transcendental number. Not only is it irrational, but you can’t even say that Pi is the root of a polynomial equation. Don’t ask me to prove that – I can’t remember how it’s done.
Pi is very useful for circles, but it’s also critical for all sorts of other things (mostly because they’re periodic, which is like going around in a circle). In fact, it is one the 5 most important numbers in mathematics:
* 0, the additive identity. Anything + 0 is itself.
* 1, the multiplicative identity. Anything x 1 is itself.
* Pi, the number relating the radius of a circle with its circumference.
* i, the square root of -1.
* e, the exponential identity.
These numbers are all related by one formula – known as Euler’s formula:
e^(Pi * i) + 1 = 0.
This is perhaps the most beautiful formula in all of mathematics.
Enough maths for one day. It’s almost 2 am 😉
“Pi himself is short for his age, short-sighted, and has sticky-uppy hair due to the fact that he rarely remembers to brush it.”
…Wait a second…
Hi.
I heard a news item about pi repeating itself (it was big news BECAUSE it’s infamous for not repeating – but it’s quite possible somebody screwed up).
Ben, I didn’t consciously base Pi on you. . . but if I did then it’s high praise.
Louise