The real story behind the
"Area of a Circle".
One sunny afternoon, Dominic
Candalara asks Archimedes if he was interested in walking down to a very
popular pizza shop in downtown Syracuse (not New York, but Sicily) for
lunch. Even though Archimedes was extremely busy, he did not want to
upset his friend so he accepts his luncheon invitation.
They
place an order for a large, 14-inch round pizza, but just as it was served,
they hear the sounds of several rounds of machine gun fire. Dominic
immediately jumps from his seat hoping to catch a glimpse of what was taking
place outside, leaving Archimedes alone with the pizza.
Not interested in the
activities on the street and not really hungry, Archimedes calls to the chef,
"Hey, Rosseti, bringa me a big,
sharp
knife!" Not understanding why Archimedes wants the knife, the chef
obliges, and watches in horror while Archimedes begins to cut the round pizza
into very thin slices. Each slice of pizza was uniform in size and the
slices were even in number.
For
every slice, there is a "Top" and a "Bottom".
Placing a top and bottom together, side by side, Archimedes discovered the
circle becomes a square. The area of the near rectangular shape is approximately
p r x
r = p r˛.
|
|
 |
Radius |
|
| 1/2 Circumference =
p r |
This is Archimedes first approximation of the
"Area of a Circle"!
