Archimedes, Pi, and Pickelball
Computational Complexity 2023-12-18
I typed
3,1,4,1,5,9
into OEIS and, as expected, I found that these are the first few digits of \(\pi\). See here.
I then read on the page:
\(\pi\) is sometimes refereed to a Archimedes constant, because the Greek mathematician computed lower and upper bounds of \(\pi\) by drawing regular polygons inside and outside a circle.
In my 40 or so years being involved with math, I have never heard \(\pi\) called Archimedes constant. Whats going on here?
(a) The term is STILL in use I just happened to never hear it. I noted in a blog here that I didn't have a single book on trig in my house, so this is plausible.
(b) The term is NOT in use but the person who wrote that entry either is rather old or THOUGHT it was in use or heard it once when he was 10 years old or...
(c) Some weighted sum of (a) and (b)
I suspect the term is NOT in use anymore. So when was it in use, and when did it fall out of favor?
More random thoughts
1) I googled why is it called pi but it was auto filled to ask why is it called pickleball. I'll report on both:
pi: It was first called pi in 1706 by [The Welsh Mathematician] William Jones because pi is the first letter in the Greek word perimitros which means perimeter.
Pickleball: This website here says the following. Joel Pritchard invented the game (the story is more complicated than that). With that in mind here is a direct quote:
Okay, now you know how it all started but the question we’re all thinking still remains: why do they call pickleball, well, pickleball? According the to U.S.A. Pickleball Association, the origins of the name differs between different accounts. Joel Pritchard’s wife, Joan, started to call their game pickleball because “the combination of different sports reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats.” But according to Barney McCallum, they named the game after Pritchard’s dog, who was (as you might’ve guessed) named Pickles! Despite the sour taste of actual pickles, their dog was sweet and known to run off with the ball while it was still being played! Depending on who you ask, both accounts of the game’s name may actually be true. At the start, there wasn’t any name for pickleball until an official one was needed when the game started to gain traction. With the laid-back nature of pickleball, it’s only appropriate that it was named in a similar fashion.