Who discovered pi?
Nobody knows how pi was discovered. We do know that pi has been known for over 4000 years. In 2000 BC the Babylonians used 3 1/4 as an approximation to pi, and the Egyptians used 256/81. It is very likely that people of thousands of years ago observed that circles of different sizes were similar. If you measure the circumference of any circle and divide it by the diameter of the same circle, you will get the number pi. We think that they simply measured large circles. That is why in ancient times the most frequently approximations of pi have been 3, or 22/7 or 13/4. None of these of course are exactly pi. Pi cannot be written exactly except by naming it. When we write the name pi, we are specifying exactly the value of pi. When we write 3.14 we are specifying only an approximation to pi. Here is a nice chronology of the computation of Pi 20th century BC Egyptian Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (16/9)² = 3.160493… 19th century BC Babylonians 25/8 = 3.125 12th century BC Chinese 3 9th centu
