Squaring a circle on Pi day!

by | Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Pie upon reflection is nothing but 3.14!
A new version of a design I had created a year ago.
Original idea stolen from the Interwebs

Since it is Pi(e) day, I thought it would be fun to share another design I had created a while ago in response to one of the longest running challenges in geometry: the challenge of squaring a circle. As wikipedia says:

Squaring the circle is a problem proposed by ancient geometers. It is the challenge of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.

Turns out this is impossible to do—and the main reason are the fascinating properties of the number Pi. More on that here. As Wikipedia goes on to say:

The transcendence of pi implies the impossibility of exactly “circling” the square, as well as of squaring the circle.

This is why “squaring the circle” has come to represent trying the impossible.

Impossible you say? Hah! I laugh at the face of such odds.

I am here to announce that after thousands of years of failure I have finally done what no one has ever done before – I have squared a circle. Not just that, I have gone one step further, I have also circled a square. The proof is in the pudding-pie you say! Well see for yourself. The design below should be self-explanatory.

Squaring a circle by circling a square

The square in the middle is actually a circle and the circle outside is actually a square! Or is it the circle inside is actually a square or the square outside is actually …? Hmmm… Either way, Happy Pi Day!

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Talk at Fulton School of Engineering

Talk at Fulton School of Engineering

Last August I was invited to speak at an event organized by the Ira Fulton School of Engineering's Learning and Teaching Hub. For some reason I had not posted about it — so better late than never... here it is, a 30 min talk followed by QnA....

Creativity as Resistance: New article

Creativity as Resistance: New article

Image credit: tshirtgifter.com The next article in our series (Rethinking technology and creativity for the 21st century) for the journal Tech Trends is now available online. This article has an interview with Dr. Shakuntala Banaji, currently Associate Professor and...

Photography update

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Coding with ChatGPT3: On gaining a superpower

Coding with ChatGPT3: On gaining a superpower

I had heard that ChatGPT3 could help with writing code and just hadn't much time to play with it. Part of the reason is that I haven't really coded in almost 2 decades (maybe more) so was somewhat hesitant to jump in. But again I kept reading of people doing amazing...

TPACK in the SAGE Encyclopedia of Ed Tech

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, edited by Dr. Michael Spector just got published. We have one article in it on (no surprise there) TPACK! Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2015). TPACK (technological pedagogical content knowledge). In J. Spector (Ed.),...

AERA 2013 – San Francisco, Photos

AERA 2013 - San Francisco, a set on Flickr.Photographs from the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) 2013 at San Francisco. It was great meeting up with friends and colleagues, present two talks and take in some of the sights. Enjoy.

Partial to PartiallyClips

I Stumbled Upon PartiallyClips, a web-based comic strip based on clip art. The rules are simple, "No changes to the art from frame to frame ... Never use the same clip in two strips. No repeating characters." It it amazing just how well this works, despite these...

New triplet Ambigram (Now in 3D)!

A few weeks ago I had shared a few triplet-ambigrams I had designed. For the uninitiated a triplet ambigram is a 3-d shape that cast different, and interesting, shadows depending on where you shine light on it. For instance here's a triplet ambigram that casts three...

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  1. Pi(e) day, 2019 – Punya Mishra's Web - […] the circle. I beg to differ, as I so (tongue-in-cheek-ingly) proved in this blog post from last year. Please…

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