Buffon's needle experiment combines, in a sense, experiment and trig. Although the derivation might be too advanced, it could be presented heuristically, I think. There are lots of simulations available on the web. --Bill C. -----Original Message----- From: math-fun-bounces+cordwell=sandia.gov@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:math-fun-bounces+cordwell=sandia.gov@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Jason Holt Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 3:06 PM To: math-fun Subject: Re: [math-fun] Calculating pi On Wed, 12 Jul 2006, Richard Guy wrote:

Surely best to follow Archimedes and calculate the perimeters of inscribed and circumscribed regular 6-, 12-, 24-, ...-gons? R.

Working that out computationally seems to require sines, so that the problem of calculating pi reduces to the problem of calculating sines, yes? -J _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun