During the Science Festival Antofagasta Puerto de Ideas 2025the prominent mathematician Andrés Navas offered an entertaining talk entitled “The PI number, a fascinating story”where he explained why this enigmatic number remains one of the greatest mysteries of the mathematics.
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Navas began remembering something we assume today: count It was not always as trivial as it seems. In fact, Understand the numbers and his annotation It is one of the great cognitive advances of the humanity. The numeration that we currently use roots in the India And it came to Europa Thanks to the translation of mathematical texts that Leonardo de Pisa – more known as Fibonacci– He took from the Arab world.
“Why is this story relevant? Because for centuries, the value of Pi It was not the 3.14 that we know today, “he says Navas.
What is the PI number?
Pi It is a universal constant that is defined as the ratio between the perimeter of any circle and its diameter. However, calculating its exact value was a titanic task for the old mathematicians.
One of the first to try was Archimedeswho wrote THE TREATY OF THE CIRCLE. In his time, without decimal notation, he approached Pi as 22/7. It was not accurate, but a revolutionary base for its time.
-After ArchimedesChinese mathematicians like Zu Chongzhi They achieved even more precise approaches using hundreds of hundreds and even thousands of sides, marking a before and after in the history of the calculation.
From the ancient wise to the digital era
The advance towards a more accurate calculation of Pi continued centuries later with the development of Differential calculation. It was then that bright minds arose like Srinivasa ramanujanthe Indian self -taught genius known as “The man who knew the infinity”who discovered formulas that allow calculating Pi Incredibly quickly.
Today, the brand of the largest number of decimals of Pi He shows her Emma Haruka Iwaocomputer engineer Googlewho managed to calculate more than 31 billion digits. He did it to test the current computational power and, incidentally, demonstrate that We still do not fully understand Pi.
What do we really know about Pi?
Although it seems incredible, Pi It is still an enigma. We know that it is a number irrational “That is, you can’t express yourself as an exact fraction,” but it is also transcendentwhich means that it cannot be the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients.
Their decimals, which extend to infinity, present an apparent chaos. It is even believed that All possible digit combinations They could be found in their sequence if progress is made enough: from birthday dates to any imaginable number.
“Looking from afar, Pi decimals have an order in that chaos“Navas reflected in his talk. And he closed highlighting that Understanding Pi remains one of the most important questions of modern mathematics.
