I am wrong in thinking the circumference or the diameter of a circle has to be rational?
There is no circle where the diameter and the circumference are both whole numbers.
Math question: how do we get an irrational number pi from the ratio of circumference and the diameter of a circle?
Submitted 4 months ago by Twoafros@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
BuddyTheBeefalo@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
benni@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m kind of dissatisfied with the answers here. As soon as you talk about actually drawing a line in the real world, the distinction between rational and irrational numbers stops making sense. In other words, the distinction between rational and irrational numbers is a concept that describes numbers to an accuracy that is impossible to achieve in real life. So you cannot draw a line with a clearly irrational length, but neither can you draw a line with a clearly rational length. You can only define theoretical mathematical constructs which can then be classified as rational or irrational, if applicable.
More mathematically phrased: in real life, your line to which you assign the length L will always have an inaccuracy of size x>0. But for any real L, the interval (L-x;L+x) contains both an infinite number of rational and an infinite number of irrational numbers. Note that this is independent of how small the value of x is. This is why I said that the accuracy, at which the concept of rational and irrational numbers make sense, is impossible to achieve in real life.
So I think your confusion stems from mixing the lengths we assign to objects in the real world with the lengths we can accurately compute for mathematical objects that we have created in our minds using axioms and definitions.
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 4 months ago
…when the mathematician and the philosopher argue, but the engineer just smiles: you are both wrong :-)
gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de 4 months ago
SmoothIsFast@lemmy.world 4 months ago
He’s out of line, but he’s right
dragontamer@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Lets reverse it.
Why must the circumference and diameter of a circle be related in such a way by two integers precisely?
thesmokingman@programming.dev 4 months ago
I don’t know that the common proof by contradiction is even remotely straightforward for this community. Niven’s proof relies on way more shit than you’d expect someone asking the question this way to know. I’m honestly not sure there is a simple proof because even Lambert’s relies on continued fractions.
Alteon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
What’s interesting is that no matter how big or how small your circle is, pi is a constant ratio of the diameter to the perimeter (or circumference) of your circle. If you were to cut a string to the length of your circle’ diameter, it WILL ALWAYS wrap around by 3.14159 (or π times). That’s where that number comes from.
Because of this ratio, there will never be a situation in which both the diameter and circumference are both logical numbers at the same time. Either your Diameter is a logical number or your circumference. For example:
P=πD
If D=1… Then P=π(1) or P=π
If P=1… Then P=π(1/π) where D=(1/π)
elbowgrease@lemm.ee 4 months ago
huh - I never thought of it that way but of course it makes total sense.
I love this question - simple but thought provoking!
amio@kbin.social 4 months ago
Logical numbers?
Alteon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
*rational
Good catch. Fixed. I apparently suck with words sometimes. Intent good. Execution flawed. :)
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 4 months ago
If you were to cut a string to the length of your circle’ diameter, it WILL ALWAYS wrap around by 3.14159 (or π times).
Isn’t that backwards?
Alteon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Nope.
The equation is P=πD. Meaning the Perimeter is equal to 3.14 times the length of your Diameter.
You can visualize it here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=1lQfERPjkzk
BrerChicken@lemmy.world 4 months ago
[deleted]Klear@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It has nothing to do with the curve being weird. You’re working with two length, and a length of a curve is no different from a length of a radius. You can have a circle where the circumference is exactly 1. In that case it’s the radius that’s bringing in the irrationality.
JoBo@feddit.uk 4 months ago
No, they don’t have to be rational. It’s counter-intuitive but you can accurately draw a line with an irrational length, even though you can’t ever finish writing that length down.
The simplest example is a right-angled triangle with two side equal to 1. The hypotenuse is of length root 2, also an irrational number but you can still draw it.
Twoafros@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Thanks for the answer. I’m confident you’re correct but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around drawing a line with an irrational length. If we did draw a right angled triangle with two sides equal to 1cm and we measured the hypotenuse physically with a ruler, how would we measure a never ending number? How would we able to keep measuring as the numbers after the decimal point keep going forever but the physical line itself is finite?
Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
It’s not that it can be measured forever, it’s just that it refuses to match up with any line on the ruler.
For a line of length pi: it’s somewhere between 3 or 4, so you get a ruler and figure out it’s 3.1ish, so you get a better ruler and you get 3.14ish. get the best ruler in existence and you get 3.14159265…ish
cali_ash@lemmy.wtf 4 months ago
You’re talking about maths, maths is theoretical. Measuring is physics.
In the real world you eventually would have to measure the atoms of the ink on your paper, and it would get really complicated. Basically … you can’t even meassure how long it is exactly because physics gets in the way (There is an entire BBC documentary called “How Long is a Piece of String” it’s quite interesting).
JoBo@feddit.uk 4 months ago
Irrational numbers can be rounded to whatever degree of accuracy you demand (or your measuring instrument allows). They’re not infinite, it just requires an infinite number of decimal places to write down the exact number. They’re known to be within two definite values, one rounded down and one rounded up at however many decimal places you calculate.
Moobythegoldensock@lemm.ee 4 months ago
In the real world, you’re measuring with significant figures.
You draw a 1 cm line with a ruler. But it’s not really 1 cm. It’s 0.9998 cm, or 1.0001, or whatever. The accuracy will get better if you have a better ruler: if it goes down to mm you’ll be way more accurate than if you only measure in cm, and even better if you have a nm ruler and magnification to see where the lines are.
When you go to measure the hypotenuse, the math answer for a unit 1 side triangle is 1.414213562373095… . However, your ruler can’t measure that far. It might measure 1.4 cm, or 1.41, or maybe even 1.414, but you’d need a ruler with infinite resolution to get the math answer.
Let’s say your ruler can measure millimeters. You’d measure your sides as 1.000 cm, 1.000 cm, and 1.414 cm (the last digit is the visual estimate beyond the mm scoring.) Because that’s the best your ruler can measure in the real world.
Nemo@midwest.social 4 months ago
I’d like to point out that rational numbers can easily be written in finite length, just not in decimal format.
wjrii@kbin.social 4 months ago
Yup. This is corollary to the other post talking about diameter. If you make a perfect circle with your perfect meter of perfect string, suddenly you can no longer perfectly express the diameter in SI units, but rather it's estimated at 31.8309886... cm. Nothing is wrong with the string in either scenario.
Marcbmann@lemmy.world 4 months ago
This is a great life lesson. Even though it’s irrational, you can still do it!