Numberphile youtube channel
Take it from the guys at Numberphile to make pi interesting again.
A million digits of pi on rolled paper — unravelled across a runway. Each digit is 1/15th of an inch. The site claimes the length is just over a mile. Are they correct? What kind of questions would a grade 7 or 8 class ask after viewing this video ?
Numberphile is a british channel on youtube where they essentially talk about the joy of numbers. For number lovers, in which the name implies, this is an interesting discussions in numeracy. They bring up a lot of advanced math and talk about it in terms that most laymans can better understand.
A lot of the content seems intended for those in grade 12 high school or university-level math, but they do bring up some good questions such as “Why can’t we divide by 0?” and “How to order 43 chicken McNuggets?” where they wonder can they buy exactly 43 chicken McNuggets based on the boxes the chain sells.
My favourite Numberphile episode is where they find the ratio of pi using real pies. The video, which is clocked at 3 minutes 14 seconds, uses hundreds of pies to form a large circle and its diameter and even the host seemed a bit surprised at the results.
Mathworkz 