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From: kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Who said pi was 3?
Message-ID: <659@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Mar-86 12:21:46 EST
Article-I.D.: bentley.659
Posted: Mon Mar 24 12:21:46 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 26-Mar-86 04:23:15 EST
References: <12565@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
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In article <12565@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU
(Matthew P. Wiener) writes:
>Followups to net.math only.

(I believe this is automatic if you put "Followup-To:" in the header.)

>A weird book on pi with a long description of the Indiana fiasco is Petr
>Beckmann _A History of Pi_.

See also _Mathematics Magazine_, Vol. 50 No. 3 (May, 1977), pp. 136-140.
(They include the text of Indiana House Bill No. 246.)

More recently (1981?) there's been some eccentric mathematician who claims
that pi = sqrt(10).  His book was priced at $31.62 (~= 10 "pi" = "pi"^3).

When I first heard this, I wondered what is the most elementary proof that
pi < sqrt(10)?  (I'd guess a circumscribed 24-gon.)