Customer Reviews

The Joy of Pi

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!).

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.

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

There is a lot of very interesting information presented in David Blatner's The Joy of Pi, but it is well hidden behind a precipitous writing style and the worst graphics and design work ever presented in a general science book. But then why four stars?

Well, this one little tidbit alone was worth the price of admission: "The height of an elephant (from foot to shoulder) equals 2 x Pi x the diameter of the elephants foot". This is just one example of how Blatner attempts to show his audience how intrinsic and real and relevant Pi is to the everyday world. And he does it with a type of bombastic style and confident fun oftentimes not seen in general science books.

Well, at least it is fun for the first seventy-five pages or so. In the final chapters of the book, Blatner falls into a twenty-plus page flame of cyclometers (i.e. mathematical diletantes who are still trying to square the circle -- if you don't know what this means, then you really need to read the book!). His diatribe includes more than a dozen call-out boxes, 15 quotes, and various other assorted and sundry techniques for trying to make cyclometers look ridiculous (I don't believe that cyclometers will be successful, but it's their kind of energy and passion that put the human race in space).

Net/net:
1) Wealth of interesting facts about Pi
2) Design and formatting of text and graphics couldn't be worse
3) Questionable value to the last chapters which include a 20+ page flame on cyclometers
4) Three hour read to learning all the general enthusiast needs to know about Pi

This book contains the first million digits of pi. At first, this is intriguing, but after a hundred digits or so, it gets a little tedious, and after the first thousand it's a struggle. Nonetheless I got to the conclusion, and was pleasantly surprised to find out the last digit was 1.

Seriously, this is a fun book filled with interesting facts about this transcendental number. It is a history of the struggles to find this number with greater and greater precision, but it is also a grab bag of other material showing pi's "ability" to show up in unlikely places.

The presentation of the book is a bit flawed, almost causing this book to lose a star. In particular, some of the text is hard to read because it is on top of an illustration. Since this probably as much the fault of the publisher as the writer, however, I won't rate this lower that five stars. If you enjoy math, this is a fun little diversion, and you might even learn a thing or two in the process.

I used to hate math. I had no use for it other than balancing my checkbook, and even that was a laborious task. Then while visiting my brother, who happens to be an engineer, I noticed this book lying on his coffee table. Tired of feeling "out of the loop" in the math world, I picked up the book. What a page-turner! I spent the entire next day discussing Pi with my brother, and in turn learned more about math and the laws of physics in one day than I ever had in school! Who knew that a number I once dismissed could be so transcendental and enigmatical??? My only regret was that the book ended, and now my view of math has forever changed. What a whimsical and paradoxical subject! I cannot WAIT to show this book to my son. He's only a toddler now but believe me, he will come to fully know the true magic and mysticism of a little number called Pi.

I enjoyed this book immensely. It is neither too long to be ponderous for its subject - a non-technical review of the fascination of the number pi - nor too brief to be trivial. Its graphic nature and content went a long way to maintaining my interest and stimulating my own ideas. Maybe I do have a way to square the circle!

Just kidding!!

This book was fascinating, and I learned alot on pi day.
On march 14 (Pi day) I had memorized 50 digits, and wowed my classmates.
I reccomend this book to any budding Pi researcher/memorizer

What a delightful book: exemplary in its depth, and fascinating in the writing. As an undergraduate math major, I have been in love with numbers, the lore of numbers, and the history of numbers, and this easy to read but tantalizing in its depth, shows that my passion has not been in vein. I particularly enjoyed the psychology of the pi seekers. It is almost too good for its audience, and should be enjoyed by all ages at all levels. The description of the savants who memorize thousands of digits is memorable. To think of a billion digits without a repeat or a pattern gives me awe. Yet the concept is so simple as to be obvious. I intend to give this to my granddaughter when she turns six.

David Blatners book on the history of Pi is inspiring and concise. Going through the history, East and West, where the reader the will discover all the errors in formulating this most mysterious infinite number. Blatner also discusses how to remember the number, if need be, as well as some tidbits of information where pi has shown up, either in movies or books or wherever. The book essentially avoids mathematical equations, although they are displayed to those that understand them, the book is written so anyone can appreciate the the work involved in getting to pi. A fun read and reccomended as an introduction to finding the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter of a circle.