Scindete Caelum, Iam Pondera Fracta

Pi - π

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:43:18 GMT

π

You likely already know what Pi is.
The number of times the diameter of a circle will wrap around it, a number used to measure the circle's approximate circumference.
3.14 is the widely known decimal approximation, or 22 divided by 7.
Pi is also the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, pronounced just like your favorite dessert. In the Greek numeric system, it equals 80.

In mathematics, Pi is known as one of the most famous irrational and imaginary numbers, a decimal that neither terminates or repeats despite hundreds and hundreds of digits having been found and recorded.

Actually, 22/7 is inaccurate to farther decimals. 355/113 is the next most accurate approximation, and 103993/33102, while long and somewhat absurd, is also the next best. Pi is a complex algorithm that has took many years to approximate farther than the tenth digit. With today's technology, it's been accurately approximated to the trillionth digit with no end in sight.

Some people have various reasons to remember this well known number, ranging from boredom to obsession, with (according to Wikipedia) the greatest number known and recited being something like 30 million places.
Most normal people simply consider the idea absurd.

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Just for interest's sake, I was searching pi on the internet (I have to check my facts before I write something, too. o.o;) and I found a quite amusing little site.
A Pi Searcher.

You can search for various numbers within the first two million digits, like your birthday, important dates, and anything else you might care to find. Just a random thing to do for boredom's sake.
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Personally, I have a particular affinity to Pi for no reason other than I saw it every day of my freshman and sophomore school year on a poster in one of the school hallways. And so, I have become (according to one of my teachers) "one of those people."

Therefore, available for your viewing pleasure, my current knowledge of Pi, spaced in the increments by which I gradually memorized it.

3.141 59 26 535 89 79 323 84 626 433 832 7950 2884 197 169 3993 7510 5820 97 4944...

The Golden Ratio

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:13:47 GMT

0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765...

Have you ever seen this progression of numbers?

Perhaps you have, perhaps you haven't. This is called the Fibonacci Sequence.
It's not too difficult to replicate, either. Each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, starting with 0 and 1.

What's so special about this famous sequence? When a number of this sequence is divided by the previous Fibonacci number, it results in a number that becomes closer and closer to approximately 1.618 as the sequence continues, without ever actually hitting that precise number.

Allow me to introduce you to Phi (φ).

Phi is the twenty-first letter of the Greek alphabet, and is used in the Greek numeric system as 500 (φ') and 500,000 (,φ).
For our intents and purposes, Phi (not to be confused with Pi because the pronunciation is similar) is a mathematical symbol used for one plus the square root of five, all over two.
...which equals approximately 1.6180339887. The same number that the Fibonacci Sequence is linked with.

The Golden Ratio. Known to different people sometimes as the golden mean or the golden proportion, Phi is just another name for the famous Golden Ratio.

So, we have a string of numbers and some particularly well-christened letter. What is the significance of it all, and why is it so important?

The Golden Ratio has been inspiration for a lot of the world's music, art, and architecture. You may have heard of the first people to use it, the Egyptians in building the Pyramids. This ratio has been found multiple times in nature, so many times that people have believed this ratio to be one of the building blocks upon which the world was formed. Many artists and musicians have used the Golden ratio in their paintings and compositions.

For example. Did you know that the number of female to male bees have an uneven ratio? After studying their genetics and ancestry, it's been found that the number of female bees divided by the male bees is approximately 1.618 because of the way the generations progress, with some variation.

Leonardo De Vinci has a famous piece of art, called the Ventruvian Man, displaying his knowledge of the human body. Several different proportions of the human body approximate the Golden Ratio. When measured, the distance from one's head to foot, divided by the belly-button to foot approximates Phi, as does a person's base arm (without measuring the hand) divided by the lower arm. The lower arm divided by the hand also follows this. There are many other instances similar to this in the human body that are said to equal the "Divine Proportion".

The shells of mollusks that use chambers also equal the divine proportion- dividing the farthest outside section by the next equals Phi, and this can be done to each section consecutively to the middle. Sunflowers, with their rings of seeds, also exhibit the ratio. Dividing the diameter of one of the seeds on the farthest outside of a sunflower by a seed from the next also equals the proportion.

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Some of these things have been disputed and people argue that the proportions are not perfect enough to be considered widely-known. However, I thought that Phi, the Golden Ratio, and the Fibonacci Sequence are interesting enough, regardless.

Writer's Block: It Sounds Better When You Say It

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:34:31 GMT

No matter what language you speak, you've probably come across words or phrases in another language that sound better than their equivalents in your native tongue. What's your favorite word or phrase in a foreign language?

View 507 Answers

After taking Latin for two years, I can still say that in general I prefer English because of the number of words there are and how specific you can get with them. However, I prefer Latin in some cases because it is simple, and conveys what you want with fewer words. Some phases I commonly use in English are actually quite amusing when you translate them literally from the Latin equivalent.

Anyway, one of my favorite phrases is "Carpe Diem."
Most people know the translation to be 'Seize the day!'
But actually, the literal translation is "Pluck the day!" The basic meaning is there, but stated in the literal words, it's much more refreshing. ^^