Pi and Rectangle Date: Fall 2011 Can the number representing Pi
be used to measure a rectangle? Amazingly, yes. In the
Babylonian Talmud (Succoth 8.), there is a discussion about the
area of a circle. They create many concentric ropes to fill the
circle. The then slit it and fan it out to form an isosceles
triangle. This triangle is then bisected from the apex into two
right triangles. One of the right triangles is brought around to
form a rectangle. One side of the rectangle is the radius of the
circle, and the other side is half the circumference (0.5 * 2 pi
r). Nathan A. Unterman Click here to return to the Mathematics
Archives Update: June 2012