A History of Pi, also titled A History of π,[1] is a 1971 non-fiction book by Petr Beckmann that presents a layman's introduction to the concept of the mathematical constant pi (π).[2]
[edit] Contents
Beckmann was a Czechoslovakian who fled the Communist regime to come to the United States; his dislike of authority gives A History of Pi a style that belies its dry title. For example, his chapter on the era following the classical age of ancient Greece is titled "The Roman Pest";[3] he calls the Catholic Inquisition the act of "insane religious fanatic"; and he says that people who question public spending on scientific research are "intellectual cripples who drivel about 'too much technology' because technology has wounded them with the ultimate insult: 'They can't understand it any more.'"
[edit] Chapters
A History of Pi is divided into 18 chapters.
- Dawn
- The Belt
- The Early Greeks
- Euclid
- The Roman Pest
- Archimedes of Syracuse
- Dusk
- Night
- Awakening
- The Digit Hunters
- The Last Archimedeans
- Prelude to Breakthrough
- Newton
- Euler
- The Monte Carlo Method
- The Transcendence of π
- The Modern Circle Squarers
- The Computer Age
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Review by H. W. Gould, Math. of Computation, 28(1974), 325-327
