A team of three high-level math students from Englewood High School joined nearly 400 of the best high school math students in Colorado and neighboring states for a full double elimination tournament and other activities at Colorado State University (CSU). Dubbed “Math Day,” the event has been hosted by CSU nearly every year since 1977.
Sophomore Tyler Chmielewski, junior Rafael Lopez Fernandez, and junior Edwin Ruiz left EHS at 7 am to get to the event in Fort Collins. They first registered for the tournament then put their poster on display for judges. The poster included a history of irrational numbers and talked about Pi and E.
The data they found:
In ~1750 BC, the Babylonians approximated pi to 1 digit.
In ~1650 BC, the Egyptians approximated pi to 1 digit.
In ~240 BC, Archimedes approximated pi to 3 digits using polygon approximation.
In ~220 AD, Chinese Mathematicians (Liu Hui, Zu Chongzhi) approximated pi to 5 digits using polygon approximation.
In ~1465, Indian Mathematicians (Madhava, Nilakantha Somayaji) calculated pi to 11 digits using an undocumented infinite series.
In 1424, Jamshīd al-Kāshī calculated pi to 16 digits using polygon approximation.
In 1579, François Viète calculated pi to 9 digits using an infinite product.
In 1596, Ludolph van Ceulen calculated pi to 35 digits using polygon approximation.
In 1630, Christoph Grienberger calculated pi to 38 digits using polygon approximation.
In 1665, Isaac Newton calculated pi to 15 digits using an infinite series (arcsine).
In 1699, Abraham Sharp calculated pi to 71 digits using an infinite series (arctangent).
In 1706, John Machin calculated pi to 100 digits using a Machin-like formula.
In 1844, Zacharias Dase calculated pi to 200 digits using a Machin-like formula.
In 1853, William Shanks calculated pi to 527 digits using a Machin-like formula.
In 1946, Daniel Ferguson calculated pi to 620 digits using a Machin-like formula.
In 1949, John Wrench calculated pi to 1120 digits using a Machin-like formula, this is the current world record for hand done or with a desk calculator.
As of June 28th 2024 the current world record for digits was set by Jordan Ranous, Kevin O’Brien and Brian Beeler totalling 202,112,290,000,000 correct digits! This was achieved using y-Cruncher, the current leading formula for calculating digits of pi.
The students got to experience a Math lecture by a professional mathematician, then the team took part in the college-bowl-style competition which features a full, double-elimination tournament with 3-member teams from 64 schools. During each round, the team answered questions like, “You have a circle with radius sqrt(2) and is centered at 1,2 and at point (0,1) what point is antipodal.” The EHS team made it through four rounds.
This annual event takes place in the Lory Student Center and also offered students a Math Day Public Lecture series, and a Mathematics Fair.
