''A History of Pi'' (also titled ''A History of '') is a 1970 non-fiction book by

Petr Beckmann Petr Beckmann (November 13, 1924 – August 3, 1993) was a professor of electrical engineering who became a well-known advocate of libertarianism and nuclear power. Later in his life he disputed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity and oth ...

that presents a layman's introduction to the concept of the

mathematical constant A mathematical constant is a key number whose value is fixed by an unambiguous definition, often referred to by a symbol (e.g., an alphabet letter), or by mathematicians' names to facilitate using it across multiple mathematical problems. Cons ...

pi ().

Author

Beckmann was a

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

n who fled the

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

regime to go to the United States. His dislike of authority gives ''A History of Pi'' a style that belies its dry title. For example, his chapter on the era following the classical age of

ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cult ...

is titled "The Roman Pest"; he calls the Catholic

Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

the act of "insane religious fanatic"; and he says that people who question public spending on scientific research are "intellectual cripples who drivel about 'too much technology' because technology has wounded them with the ultimate insult: 'They can't understand it any more.'" Beckmann was a prolific scientific author who wrote several electrical engineering textbooks and non-technical works, founded Golem Press, which published most of his books, and published his own monthly newsletter, ''Access to Energy''. In his self-published book ''Einstein Plus Two'' and in Internet

flame wars Flaming or roasting is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. This term should not be confused with the term trolling, which is the act of someone going online, or in person, and causing ...

, he claimed that the theory of relativity is incorrect.

Bibliography

''A History of Pi'' was originally published as ''A History of '' in 1970 by Golem Press. This edition did not cover any approximations of calculated after 1946. A second edition, printed in 1971, added material on the calculation of by electronic computers, but still contained historical and mathematical errors, such as an incorrect proof that there exist infinitely many

prime numbers A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...

. A third edition was published as ''A History of Pi'' in 1976 by

St. Martin's Press St. Martin's Press is a book publisher headquartered in Manhattan, New York City, in the Equitable Building. St. Martin's Press is considered one of the largest English-language publishers, bringing to the public some 700 titles a year under si ...

. It was published as ''A History of Pi'' by Hippocrene Books in 1990. The title is given as ''A History of Pi'' by both Amazon and by WorldCat. # # # # # #

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:History of pi 1970 non-fiction books Popular mathematics books Pi

Author

Bibliography

See also

References