12 Jul
2006
12 Jul
'06
3:24 p.m.
On 7/12/06, Jason Holt <jason@lunkwill.org> wrote:
Working that out computationally seems to require sines, so that the problem of calculating pi reduces to the problem of calculating sines, yes?
-J
No, just the pythagorean theorem. Start with an equilateral triangle; bisect it to get triangles of length 1,1/2, sqrt(3)/2. Then you attach two more triangles below it with lengths 1/2, 1-sqrt(3)/2, sqrt(5-2sqrt(3)/4) to get the sides of the dodecagon. Something vaguely like this: /|\ / | \ --+-- \|/ -- Mike Stay metaweta@gmail.com http://math.ucr.edu/~mike