The Pi Trivia Game

by Eve Andersson

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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. The following are all mnemonics for remembering the first few digits of pi (the number of letters in each word corresponds to a digit of pi). Which of these was written in 1995 by Michael Keith?
Sir, I send a rhyme excelling
in sacred truth and rigid spelling.
Numerical sprites elucidate
For me the lexicon's dull weight.
Now I, even I, would celebrate
In rhymes inapt, the great
Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore,
Who in his wondrous lore,Passed on before,Left men his guidance
How to circles mensurate.
But a time I spent wandering in bloomy night; Yon tower, tinkling chimewise, loftily opportune.
Out, up, and together came sudden to Sunday rite,
The one solemnly off to correct plenilune.
How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics. All of thy geometry, Herr Planck, is fairly hard.
Poe, E. -
Near A Raven

Midnights so dreary, tired and weary,
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".

2. What is the value of e^(i*pi)?
the square root of -1
approximately 10
pi squared
-1
1.414

3. Who, in 1706, first gave the Greek letter "pi" its current mathematical definition?
Albert Einstein
Olle the Greatest
William Jones
Archimedes
Max Planck

4. What rapidly converging formula for calculation of pi was found by Machin in 1706?
pi/4 = 1 - 1/3 + 1/5 - 1/7 + ...
pi/4 = 4 * arctan (1/5) - arctan (1/239)
e^(i*pi) = -1
pi = 3 (close enough)
pi = 4 * arctan 1

5. A famous book contains the following paragraph, implying that pi=3:

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it about.

What book does this come from?

Homer's Odyssey
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Bible
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Douglas Adams' Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy
eve@eveandersson.com