"American Pi"
(new lyrics by
Lawrence Mark Lesser
may be sung to the tune of" American Pie," by Don McLean)
in The Mathematics Teacher
May 2000
Chorus:
Find, find the value of pi, starts 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
Good ol' boys gave it a try,
but the decimal never dies,
the decimal never dies. ...
In the Hebrew Bible we do see
the circle ratio appears as three,
And the Rhind Papyrus does report
four-thirds to the fourth,
& 22 sevenths Archimedes found
with polygons was a good upper bound.
The Chinese got it really keen:
three-five-five over one thirteen!
More joined the action
with arctan series and continued fractions.
In the seventeen hundreds, my oh my,
the English coined the symbol pi,
Then Lambert showed it was a lie
to look for rational pi.
He started singing. ..(Repeat chorus)
Late eighteen-hundreds, Lindemann shared
why a circle can't be squared
But there's no tellin' some people —
can't pop their bubble with Buffon's needle,
Like the country doctor who sought renown from a
new "truth" he thought he found.
The Indiana Senate floor read his bill that made pi four.
That bill got through the House with a vote unanimous!
But in the end the statesmen sighed, "It's not for us to
decide,"
So the bill was left to die like the quest for rational pi.
They started singing. ..(Repeat chorus)
That doctor's pi in the sky dreams
may not look so extreme
If you take a look back:
math'maticians long thought that
Deductive systems could be complete and there was
one true geometry.
Now in these computer times,
we test the best machines to find
pi to a billion places that so far lack pattern's traces.
It's great when we can truly see math as human
history ‐
That adds curiosity. ..easy as pi!
Let's all try singing. ..(Repeat chorus)