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Plane Geometry - Bruce E. Shapiro

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SECTION 44. ESTIMATING π 241Figure 44.2: One segment of an octagon inscribed in a unit circle is obtainedby spliting each of the triangles in figure 44.1 in half.Therefore (since H 2 = √ 2),By a similar argumentH 2 3 = 2 − 2Ã1 −Ç√ å 22= 2 − √ 22»H 3 = 2 − √ 2 ≈ 0.765367»π 3 = 2 2 H 3 = 4 2 − √ 2 ≈ 3.06147H 2 4 = 2 − 21 −Å ã 2 H32and by induction, we obtainH 2 n = 2 − 21 −Å ã 2 Hn−12so our n th estimate of π is π n = 2 n−1 H n .Our successive estimates of H n also giveRevised: 18 Nov 2012 « CC BY-NC-ND 3.0.

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