Pi_Number

Pi Number A little known verse in the bible reads “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other; it was round all about, and his height was five cubits; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about (I Kings 7, 23).” This passage from the bible demonstrates the ancient nature of the irrational number pi. Pi in fact is mentioned in a number of verses throughout the bible. In II Chronicles 4,2, in the passage describing the building of the great temple of Solomon which was built around 950BC, pi is given as equal to three. This value is not very accurate at all and should not even be considered accurate for it’s time, however it should be noted that precision was not needed for the task that was being performed and we should let the general concept of pi that the biblical characters posses impress us. Present knowledge suggests that the concept of pi first developed in 2000 BC in two separate cultures. The Babylonians used pi at a value of 25/8 while an entirely different culture, the ancient Egyptians used pi at a value of 256/81. While the biblical calculation of pi, places, found, value, decimal, however, number, first, great, finding, centuary, about, work, showed, next, mathematician, bc, world, two, time, soon, research, new, made, it’s, irrational, find, ferguson, computer, calculating, archimedes, after, ad, accurate, wrench, while