Why do irrational numbers exist? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Answer by Alon Amit, PhD ...

Originally defined as the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, pi — written as the Greek letter π — appears throughout mathematics, including in areas that are completely ...

To celebrate Pi Day, we asked several mathematicians to tell us their favorite non-pi numbers. Here are some of their answers. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate ...

It has been assumed, on historical and psychological grounds, that the concept of irrational numbers faces two major intuitive obstacles: a) the difficulty to accept that two magnitudes (two line ...

This all started with Pi and now I can't stop. Let me summarize what I have done so far: Pi day in the US is March 14 th. This doesn't work for non-USAians since they write the date in a reasonable ...

In the early 1970s mathematician Donald Knuth spent a sabbatical with his wife in Norway. The time was meant to be spent relaxing. Yet one night he woke up his partner in a state of agitation. He ...

The ancient Greeks wanted to believe that the universe could be described in its entirety using only whole numbers and the ratios between them — fractions, or what we now call rational numbers. But ...