Mile of Pi - Numberphile
2,240,502 Views
151 Questions Answered
Best of Web
Let’s Begin…
The team from Numberphile printed one million decimal places of Pi onto a piece of paper which stretched for over a mile. They rolled it out on a runway usually used for testing planes and cars.
As stated, the "point size" used to print the digits in this video is 8, with each digit being 1/15th of an inch across. Now imagine the team want to roll out the first million digits of Pi all the way to the "nearby" star Alpha Centauri, at a distance of 4.37 light-years. But this time they can USE ONLY ONE MILLION DIGITS (not add more digits), so clearly the point size will need to be scaled up. Keeping all things in proportion, what will the new point size be? How wide is each digit on this piece of paper which stretches through space?
Sign in to answer questionAbout TED-Ed Best of Web
TED-Ed Best of Web are exceptional, user-created lessons that are carefully selected by volunteer teachers and TED-Ed staff.
Meet The Creators
- Video created by Numberphile
- Lesson Plan created by Periodic Videos