The Joy of Pi, David Blatner
The Joy of Pi, David Blatner
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The Joy of Pi

Author: David Blatner

Narrator: Oliver Wyman, Hank Jacobs, Laura Dean

Unabridged: 3 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/16/2002


Synopsis

No number has captured the attention and imagination of people throughout the ages as much as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi—or ? as it is symbolically known—is infinite and, in The Joy of pi, it proves to be infinitely intriguing. With incisive historical insight and a refreshing sense of humor, David Blatner explores the many facets of pi and humankind's fascination with it—from the ancient Egyptians and Archimedes to Leonardo da Vinci and the modern-day Chudnovsky brothers, who have calculated pi to eight billion digits with a homemade supercomputer.

The Joy of Pi is a book of many parts. Breezy narratives recount the history of pi and the quirky stories of those obsessed with it. Sidebars document fascinating pi trivia (including a segment from the 0. J. Simpson trial). Dozens of snippets and factoids reveal pi's remarkable impact over the centuries. Mnemonic devices teach how to memorize pi to many hundreds of digits (or more, if you're so inclined). Pi-inspired cartoons, poems, limericks, and jokes offer delightfully "square" pi humor. And, to satisfy even the most exacting of number jocks, the first one million digits of pi appear throughout the book.

A tribute to all things pi, The Joy of pi is sure to foster a newfound affection and respect for the big number with the funny little symbol.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Alex on December 18, 2017

This is a book all about history, facts, and basically all you need to know about the number that has sparked people minds the most in history- pi. I enjoyed this because there is a lot of interesting and random facts about pi. There is also a lot of math language that helps you learn some calculati......more

Goodreads review by Thomas Ray on March 14, 2019

(view spoiler)[It's about 355/113. [p. 25] (hide spoiler)]......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on January 07, 2021

An interesting story about an irrational number, and the unnecessary and crazy extents people will go to to find yet another decimal point that has no bearing on everyday mathematics, or even mathematics research at a PhD level. I suppose what I like best, but already knew, was that a perfect circle......more

Goodreads review by Vicki on October 29, 2015

This was a very enjoyable book, dealing mostly with the history of pi. Amazingly it also included pi to the 1,000,000th place, in very, very small print, naturally. One of the most interesting sections is about deluded people who try to square the circle, or calculate the "true value" of pi. There's......more

Goodreads review by Lynne on January 29, 2022

Loved this book when it first came out and love it still. I was teaching mathematics and looking for extension ideas for my enthusiastic students. I have just revisited the book and love it even more. As a memory experiment, I have memorised the first 1000 digits, so Pi is really embedded in my life.......more


Awards

  • Audie Awards