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Pie

math Maturity 11-13 Next article →

Think about a circle. It might be a round coin. It might be a big wheel. All circles share a secret. They all use a special number. We call this number pi.

Pi helps us measure circles. You can use it to find the distance around a circle. This distance is called the circumference. It also helps you find the space inside a circle. This space is called the area.

Pi is a very strange number. It is an irrational number. This means it cannot be written as a simple fraction. The numbers after the decimal point go on forever. They never stop and they never make a pattern.

Some people use 3.14 to stand in for pi. This is a close enough guess for many jobs. But the real number is much longer. It is a part of math that stays the same. Every circle in the world uses it. It is a constant. This means it does not change. Whether a circle is tiny or huge, pi is always there.

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