Illuminations: Computing Pi

Celebrate Pi day (3-14) by considering the calculations of Archimedes, who inscribed and circumscribed many-sided figures around a circle and calculated their perimeters to approximate pi (3.1416). With the instructions on this interactive site you can explore Archimedes’ method as well as the method of using the areas of polygons, both inscribed and circumscribed. Change the values of n to see how the changes affect finding the approximation of pi.

courtesy of Knovation