The Life of Brian

I think that MontyPython’s The Life of Brian must be one of the funniest movies ever made.

 

Perhaps it is irreverent and even impious to think this, but I wonder if Jesus didn’t have days in which he felt exactly like Brian. In the Gospels, there always seems to be crowds of people following Him everywhere and sometimes He seemed to want to be left alone.

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. ² A man with leprosy^[a] came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. ⁴ Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” (Matt 8:1-4)

¹³ When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

¹⁵ As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

¹⁶ Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

¹⁷ “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

¹⁸ “Bring them here to me,” he said. ¹⁹ And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. ²⁰ They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ²¹ The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

²² Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. ²³ After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, ²⁴ and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

²⁵ Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. ²⁶ When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

²⁷ But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

²⁸ “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”

²⁹ “Come,” he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

³² And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. ³³ Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matt 14:13-32)

The crowds weren’t always very friendly. Even His family turned against Him.

²⁰ Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. ²¹ When his family^[b] heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

²² And the teachers of the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul! By the prince of demons he is driving out demons.”

²³ So Jesus called them over to him and began to speak to them in parables: “How can Satan drive out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. ²⁷ In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house. ²⁸ Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

³⁰ He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.”

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. ³² A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”

³³ “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.

³⁴ Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:20-34)

They kept pressing Him to declare whether or not He was the Messiah. When they didn’t like His answer they decided to stone Him.

²² Then came the Festival of Dedication^[b] at Jerusalem. It was winter, ²³ and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. ²⁴ The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

²⁵ Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, ²⁶ but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. ²⁷ My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. ²⁸ I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. ²⁹ My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all^[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. ³⁰ I and the Father are one.”

³¹ Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, ³² but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

³³ “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’^[d]? ³⁵ If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— ³⁶ what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? ³⁷ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. ³⁸ But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” ³⁹ Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp. (John 10:2-39)

Jesus was often exasperated by His disciples’ seeming stupidity.

⁵ When they went across the lake, the disciples forgot to take bread. ⁶ “Be careful,” Jesus said to them. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

⁷ They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.”

⁸ Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? ⁹ Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? ¹⁰ Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? ¹¹ How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” ¹² Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. (Matt 16:5-12)

¹⁴ When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. ¹⁵ “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. ¹⁶ I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

¹⁷ “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” ¹⁸ Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

¹⁹ Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

²⁰ He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt 17:14-20)

In the end, when He needed them most, they ran away.

⁴³ Just as he was speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders.

⁴⁴ Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him and lead him away under guard.” ⁴⁵ Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Rabbi!” and kissed him. ⁴⁶ The men seized Jesus and arrested him. ⁴⁷ Then one of those standing near drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

⁴⁸ “Am I leading a rebellion,” said Jesus, “that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? ⁴⁹ Every day I was with you, teaching in the temple courts, and you did not arrest me. But the Scriptures must be fulfilled.” ⁵⁰ Then everyone deserted him and fled.

⁵¹ A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus. When they seized him, ⁵² he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. (Mark 14:43-52)

Being the Messiah wasn’t an easy job. I wonder that He bothered. It could only have been due to His great love for us.

Related articles

• Monty Python’s Life of Brian (nontonlayartancep.wordpress.com)
• Giving Up Everything To Follow Jesus (raymcdonald.wordpress.com)
• Bible Verses That Teach You How to Be More Like Jesus (christianity.answers.com)
• And Ye Shall Know Him (Brief Dialogue From Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian”)… (darkactsbible.wordpress.com)
• What “The Life of Brian” Can Teach Us About The Sequester (youviewed.com)

Diversity Comics

 

The people at DC  Comics can certainly give themselves a well-deserved pat on the back for their recent attempts to promote diversity in the world of comic books. First, they decided that the latest incarnation of the Green Lantern would be the first homosexual hero in mainstream comics. Now they have decided to introduce the first mainstream comics transgender character in Batgirl. DC originally stood for “Detective Comics”. Perhaps DC should change it to mean Diversity Comics.

 

But, not all forms of diversity are welcome. Just ask Orson Scott Card who was hired to write new adventures for Superman. Card happens to be one of the many people in America who are not quite convinced that same-sex marriage is a wonderful idea and for this diversity from the standard Left-Liberal line the artist assigned to illustrate the stories stepped down, stores threatened to boycott the comic, and the new series has been quietly put on indefinite hold.

 

Evidently there is good diversity, based on sexual deviancy  and gender confusion and bad diversity which is based on an real differences of values and opinions. Or, perhaps to put it another way, true diversity will only be obtained when everyone thinks alike. It is a pity that Orwell didn’t live to see this day. He could have added diversity is conformity to the Party’s slogans; freedom is slavery, war is peace, ignorance is strength.

 

Check out the comments on the article from Wired I linked to, not to mention the rather snarky tone of the article itself. The great majority of the tolerant liberals seem to believe that since they have determined Card to be a bigot, he has no right to free speech or even employment. Luckily Orson Scott Card is already an established award-winning science fiction writer, but the message is clear to any aspiring writer, toe the politically correct line or else.

 

Related articles

 

• DC Reveals Transgender Character in BATGIRL #19 (newsarama.com)
• DC Comics Introduces First Openly Transgender Character (fox2now.com)
• DC Comics Artist Refuses to Illustrate Homophobe Orson Scott Card’s ‘Superman’ Comic, Leaves Project (towleroad.com)
• “Superman” Artist Quits Rather Than Work With Homophobe Orson Scott Card (queerty.com) Tolerance at work here.
• A note on the Orson Scott Card’s Superman “controversy” by way of that stuff that happened with Chick-Fil-A last year (alexwilgus.wordpress.com)
• Waiting for Hateful Homophobe Orson Scott Card’s Superman Comic Book? Don’t Hold Your Breath (slog.thestranger.com) So, believing that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman (the sane definition) is being a hateful homophobe.
• DC Comics Reveals First Trans Character (newser.com)
• Comic Book Diversity (dish.andrewsullivan.com)

 

Medieval Tech Support

I think this video is hilarious. The actors are speaking Norwegian but there are English subtitles.

There is a bit of an anachronism here since the codex, that is, a book made up of sheets of paper bound together as opposed to a scroll, was invented sometime in the first or second century, well before there were monks copying manuscripts. The Romans had used wax tablets bound together as a sort of notebook, and some unnamed inventor had the idea to bind sheets of papyrus together, thus making a book that was far more convenient to read than a scroll that had to be unrolled. The new invention took off, in part thanks to the growing number of Christians who found a Bible bound in single volume more convenient than a set of scrolls. By 300 the codex was in common use and beginning to replace the scroll and by 600 the scroll had been completely replaced by the codex. So, by the Middle Ages, books were already a tried and trusted form of providing content. Still, I can imagine that those Romans who first started to use codices might have had some trouble getting used to turning pages, as opposed to unrolling, and maybe they needed the second century equivalent of tech support to guide them through the process.

The codex remained the dominant format for books through the centuries and past the invention of printing into the twenty-first century. It may be that the e-book will gradually replace the codex over the next century or more. Maybe a couple of hundred years from now, someone will make a video making fun of people of our time who have been having difficulty making the transition to electronic media.

 

Related articles

• Why ebooks are a different genre from print (guardian.co.uk)
• Week 4- Scrolls to codex to e-readers and contemporary events. (publishedchronicles.wordpress.com)
• “One reason the early Christians liked the codex … (insightscoop.typepad.com)

 

Time Enough at Last

Time Enough at Last was the title of one of the more memorable Twilight Zone episodes. Perhaps you remember it. Harry Bemis was a bank teller whose one passion in life was reading. Unfortunately, he never had enough time to read. The bank president reprimanded him for reading while waiting on customers. His wife did not let him read at home, preferring a more social lifestyle. The only chance that Harry Bemis really had to read was in the bank vault during his lunch hour.

Time enough at last!

Bemis’s  habit of spending his lunches in the bank vault saves him when a nuclear war breaks out and he finds that he is the only survivor. He becomes lonely and despondent and contemplates suicide until he discovers the ruins of a public library. For the first time in his life, Harry Bemis has all the books he can read and time enough to read them. He eagerly stacks up the books and plans out in what order he will read them, but just as he picks up the first book, he drops his glasses, smashing them and making it impossible to read anything.

Here are the last few minutes of the episode.

You can watch the whole episode here.

It does sometimes seem as if the whole world is conspiring against us readers. Employers frown at us for reading on the job and actually expect us to work. Friends and family keep telling us to go outside in the fresh air and do various recreational activities that do not involve reading. Spouses expect us to take them places and do things with them, even talk. When they are in a romantic or amorous mood, they expect us to waste valuable reading time with sex.

Modern technology has made things a little better. Audiobooks allow us to “read” while driving or engaging in some activity. If you wear earphones, non-readers assume you’re listening to music. The invention of e-books has helped considerably. A Kindle is portable and easily concealed. We can carry whole libraries around with us to read at odd moments. I find that carrying a Kindle is a lot more convenient that the old method of carrying stacks of books. Even better, Amazon has apps for the iPhone and Android which allow you to read your Kindle books. We can read and non-readers think we are working and texting.

Still, there is never enough time for us readers to read as much as we would like. How nice it would be if there were some apocalyptic event which would destroy civilization. Sure, there would be a death toll in the millions and things would be really awful, but think of all the time we would have for reading.

There is one problem though. If there were a nuclear war or something, I doubt that electricity would be available. Without electricity to charge them, our Kindles, Nooks, and smart phones would quickly turn into expensive paperweights. Then we would end up staring at blank screens muttering, “It’s not fair”, just like poor Harry Bemis.

 

Related articles

• Kindle Obsession (ellelainey.wordpress.com)
• K: 3 Reasons I Love the KINDLE Especially When my Shoulder Was Broken (plus 5 more reasons) (fruitfulwords.wordpress.com)
• What Rod Serling, The Dude and Russell Baker Taught Me About Making Time To Read (anempoweredspirit.com)

I’ve Been Busy

I see that I have not written anything since Tuesday. I apologize for this but between work and helping my mother-in-law move, I have been busy. It is not that I have had to move a lot of furniture, she hired professional movers for that, and my wife has worked much harder than I have at moving things, and so she is even more exhausted than I am. The fact is that being the man, I have been pressed into service whenever something especially heavy has needed to be moved. The cumulative effect of that and work has been tiring.

It is odd that physical work leads to mental exhaustion. I have a long list of things that I would have like to have written and typing on a keyboard takes very little energy. But, this week, I have found myself on my computer unable to do anything except play video games. I hope I am getting over it. Anyway, I am on vacation next week.

 

Stomping on Jesus

By now the story of the Mormon student who refused to stomp on a piece of paper with Jesus written on  it must be familiar to every one who has been paying any attention at all to the news. Personally, I am not much bothered by this bit of idiocy. Jesus has suffered worse insults than this and being the Son of God, I am sure he can take it without needing any help from me. I am intrigued, however, by the professor who gave this assignment. I would guess that he is the sort of Progressive who believes himself to be a brave, freethinker who speaks truth to power. The truth may be that if one of his students had written Allah or Mohammed on a piece of paper and stomped on it, he would probably wet himself with fear; fear of being murdered by an irate Muslim, or worse, fear of losing his progressive credentials by permitting a politically incorrect action in his classroom. Perhaps, he also believes himself to be open minded and tolerant, so tolerant that a student who disagrees with him must be ejected from the classroom.

Of course I do not know the man and it is more than likely I am doing him an injustice by describing him in these terms. It doesn’t matter because I am not really writing about that particular incident. It occurred to me when I read about it, that often the person we know least well is ourselves. We look at ourselves from the inside, so to speak, and that is not often the best perspective to look at things. I imagine, that if we could see ourselves and our actions from the outside, as we see everyone else, it is quite likely that we would not recognize ourselves. We might even be appalled to discover that we are not nearly so brave, or generous, or thoughtful as we believe ourselves to be. That professor, if my ideas about him are accurate, might well detest similar actions in another, a devout or bigoted Christian mocking the beliefs of Muslims or Atheists perhaps. He might not give that other Professor the same benefit of the doubt he would give himself.

Perhaps that is the true meaning of Jesus’s words on passing judgment

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

³ “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴ How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Perhaps we should give others the same benefit of the doubt that we are apt to give our own actions and motivations. It wouldn’t hurt to subject ourselves to the same sort of critical scrutiny we often give to others.

This has been a rather more introspective post than most I have written. I’ll have to not do that too often.

 

Related articles

• Truth Is, If I’d Been There (mtsweat.com) I wish that I could honestly say that I would have refused like that student. The truth is that I am such a coward I would have done as I was told.
• Professor Makes Students “Stomp on Jesus” (conservativeread.com)
• Re: College Takes Action to Punish Student Who Refused to Stomp On Name of Jesus (forum.prisonplanet.com)
• University Bows to National Outrage, Won’t Punish Student Who Refused to Stomp Jesus (conservativeread.com)
• Watch – College Student Suspended After Refusing Professor’s Demand to Stomp on Jesus Sign (cpnagasaki.wordpress.com)
• Professor Makes Students “Stomp on Jesus” (standupforthetruth.com)

Europe in the High Middle Ages

Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan is the third book in the series The Penguin History of Europe. The High Middle Ages is the name given to the period of medieval history from 1000 to 1350. During these years, European civilization reached heights not seen in the West since the fall of the Roman Empire. The political situation in Europe stabilized somewhat, trade increased, cities grew, universities were established and learning flourished. The nations of Europe ceased to be helpless victims of foreign invasion and, through the Crusades even began to project power outside the continent.

 

Although the nations of Europe began to take their modern shape during the high middle ages, political power was extremely decentralized, especially in France, more than in the period immediately before and afterwards. The Papacy became more prominent on the international stage and powerful Popes could even challenge kings and emperors for influence.  It all ended in the middle fourteenth century with a change in climate that caused a decade of famine. Then the horrors of the Black Death struck Europe in 1349. No institution in Europe survived unscathed, and the optimism and vitality of the High Middle Ages was gone. When Europe began to recover from these disasters, it was no longer the Middle Ages, but the Renaissance, and the West was moving in a new direction.

 

William Chester Jordan brings this fascinating period of history to life in his book. Like the other books in The Penguin History of Europe, The High Middle Ages focuses less on a detailed chronology of events and more on a general overview of cultural and historic developments, especially including the political development of the emerging nation states of Europe and their relationship with the Papacy. There is also a lot of information on the intellectual trends of the High Middle Ages as well as a good account of how it all seemed to fall apart in the fourteenth century. Unfortunately, the author breaks of the story in 1350, just as the Black Death is ravaging Europe, leading to a kind of cliffhanger effect. He also doesn’t give much space for the influences of Islamic culture on Europe’s development. Still, I can recommend Europe in the High Middle Ages for anyone who wants to learn more about that fascinating period of history.

 

 

Related articles

• Thoughts on Teaching History in a Scale Up Classroom (Part VI) (mediterraneanworld.wordpress.com)
• Voting is medieval (volokh.com)
• Why Are the ‘Dark Ages’ Stigmatized? (lewrockwell.com)

Could He Be…Satan?

Since I don’t have cable I haven’t been able to watch the History Channel mini-series The Bible. I’ve read the book, so I already know how it ends. They’ve introduced Satan in a recent episode and viewers were struck by the actor’s uncanny resemblance to President Obama.

I am sure there is a perfectly good explanation for the resemblance.

If Barack Obama is, in fact, the Devil, that would explain a lot.

Related articles

• Does ‘Bible’s’ Satan look like President Obama? (todayentertainment.today.com)
• Outrage As ‘The Bible’s’ Satan Resembles President Barack Obama (contactmusic.com)Who’s outraged? It makes perfect sense to me.
• Why does the devil in ‘The Bible’ look exactly like President Obama? (calvinistview.com)

Sick and Tired

I was sick yesterday and today. It’s strange but while I was a somewhat sickly child (school might have had something to do with that) for most of my adult life I have been healthy. The last really major health problem I had was a gall bladder which was removed some fifteen years ago. Yet, twice in the last three months, I have felt sick enough to have to lay down and do nothing all day, which I hate. I hope this isn’t the beginning of some sort of trend.

Meanwhile, it is snowing here in the Ohio River Valley. Two days ago it was almost warm enough to be summer, now we are in winter again. This sort of variable weather isn’t too unusual for this part of the country, but I do wish the weather would settle on a season.

 

 

 

Pi Day

English: Pi Pie, created at Delft University of Technology, applied physics, seismics and acoustics Deutsch: Pi Pie (π-Kuchen), hergestellt an der Technischen Universität Delft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For all of the nerds out there, including me, today is international Pi Day, the day when we celebrate our favorite mathematical constant. Pi Day is best celebrated by pi memorization contests, walking in circles, and, of course, eating pies, or it is pis. I think I will celebrate by writing a little about pi.

Pi or π is, as everyone should know, the ration between a circle’s diameter and its circumference. Pi is an irrational number. By this, they do not mean that pi makes no sense but rather that pi is a constant that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers. Numbers like 2 or .445 or 1/2 can be expressed as a ratio of two integers and so are rational. Numbers like pi or the square root of any number that is not a perfect square, the square root of 2 for instance, are irrational. An irrational number expressed in decimal form never ends or repeats but continues to infinity. Thus, there can never be a last digit of pi.

The symbol π was first by the mathematician William Jones in 1706 and was popularized by another mathematician, Leonhard Euler. They chose π, the Greek equivalent of the Latin letter p, because it is the first letter of the word periphery. Π, by the way is not pronounce “pie” in Greek but “pee”, just like our p. I don’t think that international “pee” day would be nearly so appealing.

Although the symbol for pi is relatively recent, the concept is very old. The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians knew about it. Pi is even mentioned in the Bible.

²³ He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits^[o] to measure around it. ²⁴ Below the rim, gourds encircled it—ten to a cubit. The gourds were cast in two rows in one piece with the Sea. (1 Kings 7:23-24)

Properly speaking, the line around the “Sea” should have been 31.5 cubits but the ancient Hebrews were very knowledgeable about geometry and measuring techniques were crude.

There is no particular reason to calculate pi to so many digits. No
conceivable application of pi would possibly take more than 40 digits.
Still, the challenge of calculating pi to the farthest digit possible has been an irresistible one for mathematicians over the years.

Around 250 BC, Archimedes was the first mathematician to seriously try to calculate pi. He used a geometric method of drawing polygons inside and outside a circle and measuring their perimeters. By using polygons with more and more sides he was able to calculate pi with more precision and ended determining the value of pi as somewhere between 3.1408 and 3.1429. Archimedes’s method was used in the west for more than a eighteen hundred years. The Chinese and Indians used similar methods. The best result using the geometric method was the calculation of pi to 38 digits in 1630.

With the development of calculus by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz in the 1660′s it was possible to calculate pi using infinite series, or the sum of the terms of an infinite sequence. The best calculations with these methods were done by the mathematician Zacharias Daze who calculated pi to 200 places in 1844 and William Shanks who spent fifteen years to calculate pi to 707 digits. Unfortunately he made a mistake with the 528 digit. Meanwhile, in 1761 Johann Heinrich Lambert proved that pi is irrational.

Computers made the calculation of pi much faster so pi could be calculated to more digits. ENIAC calculated pi to 2037 places in 1949. This record didn’t last long. A million digits were reached 1970. As of  2011, pi has been calculated to 10,000,000,000,050 places.

Pi is not just used in geometry. There are a number of applications of pi in the fields of statistics, mechanics, thermodynamics, cosmology, and many others. Here is a list of just some of the formulae that use pi. It seems you can find pi everywhere.

With that in mind then, happy pi day! For your enjoyment here are the first thousand digits of pi.

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
  58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
  82148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128
  48111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196
  44288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091
  45648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273
  72458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436
  78925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094
  33057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548
  07446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912
  98336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798
  60943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132
  00056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872
  14684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235
  42019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960
  51870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859
  50244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881
  71010003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303
  59825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778
  18577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989

Related articles

• Calculating Pi With Real Pies (freetech4teachers.com)
• Let’s Get Literal: Calculating Pi With Pies. Actual Pies (npr.org)
• Happy Pi Day, Fellow Nerds! (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
• Happy Pi Day 2013! (geek.com)
• 28 facts about pi that you probably didn’t know (computerworld.co.nz)