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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pi 101: A fascinating survey of a mathematical enigma, January 16, 1998
Probably no number has so fascinated mathematicians and non-mathematicians as much as pi, that enigmatic and unnending number that begins 3.14159265. Pi is simple to define: it is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter. Beyond that simple definition lies much that is fascinating, as much for the behavior of those who have studied pi as for the number itself. David Blatner's "The Joy of Pi" presents many anecdotes about pi and its history, and these stories span from the inchoate stages of geometry to the recent, computer-assisted explorations (indeed, running through the book is a one-million-digit expansion of pi). For the serious mathematician, "The Joy of Pi" probably contains little new and is too brief in the topics it does cover. But Blatner's apparent aim is not to produce a weighty intellectual tome. Instead, Blatner has written what might aptly be called "Pi 101." As a brief survey of one of the more fascinating mathematical enigmae, "The Joy of Pi" succeeds swimmingly. When Stephen King, John Grisham, or Patricia Cornwell writes a new book, the audience is pre-sold. With a book about mathematics, however, the opposite is probably true. With math phobia (or innumeracy, as another author calls it) all too common, far too many people will pass up this breezy book for fear of being in over their heads or being bored to the point of tears. Anyone with such a fear should do his or her best to overcome it long enough to pick up "The Joy of Pi." The result might very well be a brief glimpse at the beauty and mystery of mathematics--and some of the more interesting and amusing pieces of its history (such as the misguided attempt to legislate pi!).
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a fun little book on a fun little number, May 20, 2000
This review is from: The Joy of Pi (Paperback)
I just received this book yesterday for winning a mathematics award at my high school. It's an interesting little book about this number that has captivated people for centuries. There's nothing new here - it's essentially a compilation of all the pi anecdotes and proof sketches that the author could find. But it's a fun little book. Scattered throughout the book in really small print are the first million digits of Pi. The text is broken by many little sidebars and quotes, and there are formulas to calculate Pi throughout. If you have computer software that will allow you to calculate these series to at least 100 decimal places or so, see how fast the series converge. One of the great themes in Pi calculation is finding series that converge faster and faster. Some series for Pi are, of course, quite elementary: 4(1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + 1/9 - ...) comes to mind, but this takes forever to converge. Then there are the "mystical" formulas - the ones where I have no idea how they equal Pi, but they do. For example, this formula, from the Chudnovsky brothers on p. 71: 1/Pi = 12 * (the sum on n = 0 to infinity) (-1)^n * (6n)!/((n!)^3*(3n!)) * (13591409+545140134n)/(640320^(3n+3/2)) which looks much more formidable, but gives 14 decimal places per term. This mystical aspect of Pi has attracted many geniuses over the centuries (including Ramanujan - there's a sidebar about him), and it isn't lost on Blatner. Buy this book. You don't have to read it cover to cover - in fact, it's probably better to just dip in at random points here and there and see what you find.
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Comic book approach, April 8, 2002
This review is from: The Joy of Pi (Paperback)
This is not for serious readers. It is however for those who have only seen the symbol and do not know more, The book gives myriad facts which are indeed interesting, but serve only to outline the history of the calculation of pi. It falls severely short in providing a contemporary perspective, in terms of how advanced were the other sciences at the same time, it fails to show the various places where pi was used and does little to elaborate on the people behind its calculations. Reading this on the heels of 'e The story of a number', this book came very disappointing since I had all sorts of expectations from the book to treat Pi with the same rich thoroughness that Eli Maor has treated e. But the book is not a complete loss, since it does go into some of the less known trivia about the number, and perhaps this book can be the basis of a trivia quiz setup on Pi. If you are a math person - avoid this.
If you are just curious and need an extremely simple crasher - no book is better than this one actually, for the above purpose
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