
The Man Who Invented Pi (2009) - Hooke
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/man-who-invented-pi
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Jun8
If you're interested in the mathematical development of Pi the book _A History
of Pi_ is a must read: [https://www.amazon.com/History-Pi-Petr-
Beckmann/dp/031238185...](https://www.amazon.com/History-Pi-Petr-
Beckmann/dp/0312381859)

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sundars
Pi in ancient india [https://souravroy.com/2011/01/07/pi-in-indian-
mathematics/](https://souravroy.com/2011/01/07/pi-in-indian-mathematics/)

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NikkiA
> They didn’t call it Pi though.

Which goes against the whole article anyway, since Jones didn't invent, or
claim to invent, the _concept_ of Pi either, that'd be a 3-way shootout
between ancient indians, chinese or egyptians, Jones just assigned it the name
Pi.

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alberto_ol
He was the father of the philologist William Jones
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_(philologist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jones_\(philologist\))

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honoredb
...who invented PIE [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-
European_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_language)

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tinza123
Also found by ancient Chinese Zu Chongzhi
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zu_Chongzhi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zu_Chongzhi)

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chasingthewind
If your post is intended to combat the tendency for westerners to constantly
repeat stories about western contributions to science and culture and to
minimize or ignore the contributions of other cultures then I'd agree but I
think your post doesn't really get that across.

The article seems to be making the assertion that William Jones was the first
person to use the Greek Letter "Pi" to represent Pi the transcendental number
and the first to suggest Pi was unable to be "expressed in numbers."

So in that sense the claim is that Jones invented the association of "Pi" to
Pi...the association of the Greek letter to the number itself.

The article really isn't talking about finding approximations for pi so
neither Zu Chongzhi nor Archimedes or any other older mathematicians finding
approximations are really relevant here. [0]

Frankly its not even a particularly interesting piece of history in my
opinion. A curiosity but nothing more.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Antiquity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi#Antiquity)

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tinza123
Fair enough, thanks for the references. My previous comment was merely
intended to be anecdotal, not trying to invoke arguments :)

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adamnemecek
I'm still partial to tau.

[https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto](https://tauday.com/tau-manifesto)

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lordnacho
Half of me thinks that too

