The Pi Trivia Game

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Finally this is your chance to pay tribute to the magnificent transcendental number that we have all grown to love! Here are 25 questions (given to you 5 at a time), picked randomly from my pi question database. Get ready for the thrill of your lifetime, the ultimate challenge, The Pi Trivia Game!

1. Pi is ubiquitous in the branch of mathematics known as statistics. The maximum height of what famous curve is equal to 1/sqrt(2*pi)?

a sine curve
the bell (Gaussian) curve for a standard normal distribution
the step function y = int(x) between x=-17 and x=0
the Sarstedt curve
Euler's population density curve

2. The physicist Willebrord Snellius (1580-1626) found polygons which better approximated the perimeter of circles than do inscribed and circumscribed polygons. Better perimeter approximations lead to more quickly converging pi approximations. What scientific discovery is Snellius best known for?

the laws of reflection and refraction
general relativity
exploding pop-tarts
the photoelectric effect
the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics

3. Say you have a rope wrapped tightly around the earth at the equator. How much longer would you have to make the rope if you wanted the rope to be exactly 1 foot above the surface the whole way around? (assume that the earth has a constant radius at the equator)

2*pi feet
2*pi*R feet, where R is the radius of the earth
pi*R^2 feet
pi + D feet, where D is the diameter of the earth
pi/2 feet

4. What is the value of e^(i*pi)?

the square root of -1
approximately 10
pi squared
-1
1.414

5. Which French mathematician said in 1909 that it is hopeless to think that we could ever check if there are 10^100 consecutive zeroes in the decimal expansion of pi?

Félix-Édouard-Justin Émile Borel
René Baire
Felix Klein while looking at his cat.
Felix Klein while looking at his cat in his bottle.
Möbius while walking on a strip of stamps.

eve@eveandersson.com