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Name: LuAnn
Status: other
Grade: other
Location: NM
Country: USA
Date: Fall 2011
Question:
Can the number representing Pi be used to measure a rectangle?


Replies:
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


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