A Fascinating Visualization Of Pi Occurs In Real Life
We all know what pi is. We've all used it in equations in 7th grade. But seeing 3.1415… arise out of real-world actions is always a little bit spooky. To wit: This computer simulation of Buffon's Needle problem, which originally involved dropping needles on a wood floor and seeing how many of the needles crossed a floorboard crack, with the idea that the number of needles crossing a crack divided by the number of needles dropped should equal pi (we'll get to that below).
Redditor u/andreas_dib built a computer simulation of the needle problem, which shows how the ratio of needles crossing the cracks (teal) to needles that don't (purple) does indeed approach the value of pi as more and more needles are dropped. It's fascinating:
The math here is, unsurprisingly, rather complicated and has to do with the circle formed by the sweep of the needle turned around its center. Also unsurprisingly, Numberphile has explained the phenomenon and explained it very well:
[Via Reddit]