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To: kosta50
Why is Pi not provable?

In theory it is but the number has yet to be definitively defined.

Well, I have had a change of heart.

Regarding Scripture or Orthodoxy?

53 posted on 04/10/2010 12:47:43 PM PDT by conservonator (Former government employee - USMC)
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To: conservonator
In theory it is [provable] but the number has yet to be definitively defined

That is just a shortcoming of our mathematical working model. Just as simple geometry can describe area and volume of fixed geometrical shapes (circles, squared, rectangles, triangles), etc., it can only approximate that of more complex shapes.

It takes calculus to describe areas and volumes of irregular shapes through integration using limits. We just haven't discovered the type of mathematical model that will give us a finite solution for π.

Calculus was essential in the development of mathematical expressions for optical design, because you could dispense with actual geometrical "ray tracing" and simply apply 3rd order or higher equations using derivatives to obtain solutions without tedious logarithmic traces.

Our mathematical tools are incapable of solving for π; the exact solution of π does not prove or disprove π. It is a fact and it is provable without a single real number.

Regarding Scripture or Orthodoxy?

55 posted on 04/10/2010 11:30:11 PM PDT by kosta50 (The world is the way it is even if YOU don't understand it)
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