2min chapter

In Our Time cover image

Pi

In Our Time

CHAPTER

The Odyssey of Odette

Pi is a slippery number which keeps evading us. It comes up in the things that Ian has described, it comes up in probability all over the place. Newton wrote to a friend of his in 1666, I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures, namely 15, I carry these calculations having no other business at this time. This reminds me so much of the beginning of Proust's great remembrance of things past - where Swan sees his beloved Odette in the crowd and pursues her but she continually evades him. That's pi. Pi is our Odette, leading us on this chase through the crowd of numbers, through the crowdof phenomena, hoping to capture

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