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@REPLYADDR Jim Wilkins <muratlanne@gmail.com>
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"Daniel65" wrote in message news:ud4au9$1d7b1$
1@dont-email.me...
And the Egyptians were doing it, what, 5,000 years before the Europeans
(or whomever) came up with the 22/7 approximation.
Daniel
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https://www.exploratorium.edu/pi/history-of-pi
"The first calculation of p was done by Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BC),
one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world....Archimedes showed
that p is between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71."
"A similar approach was used by Zu Chongzhi (429-501), a brilliant Chinese
mathematician and astronomer....He calculated the value of the ratio of the
circumference of a circle to its diameter to be 355/113."
The number was of only theoretical interest until the British Navy began
searching for and more importantly investing in measurement accuracy after a
fleet was wrecked on rocks due to a navigational error.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Ramsden
The key to his improvement was finding more accurate ways to generate
precision screw threads. Before him screw threads were usually cut freehand
or by winding a brass and black iron wire around a brass rod and then
dipping it in solder, which joined only the brass. Removing the iron wire
left a spiral between the brass wires that served as a guide. The actual
cutting tool looked like a comb, with hand-filed cutting teeth.
https://www.jamesriser.com/Machinery/chasers/making_chasers.html
That was good enough for the short screws in clocks but not for accurate
measurement. A metal lathe that guided the cutting tool with a precision
leadscrew was introduced in 1797, and enabled the Industrial Revolution.
https://www.lindahall.org/about/news/scientist-of-the-day/henry-maudslay
Government support such as Maudslay received from the Admiralty was critical
to many early advances since it could provide startup money to create better
tooling for faster production. At first private investors were reluctant to
take that risk with their own money, the government had both tax funds and
means of enforcement to assure delivery. The only manufactured product the
government need to buy in large quantity was improved firearms, so they led
the way to mass production, more in America than Europe.
https://www.nps.gov/spar/learn/historyculture/thomas-blanchard-and-his-lathe.htm
By the 1850`s other industries like watchmaking had seen the advantage and
followed.
The US government still heavily supports technological advancement by
creating demand for aerospace products that civilian society wouldn`t.
Consumers including me tend to stop buying new once the current products are
good enough. I`m still happily using an iPhone 6S and driving a carefully
maintained 23 year old car. Yesterday I readjusted the valves.
--- Microsoft Windows Live Mail 16.4.3505.912
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