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Eureka 66, 55-57 (2020) If you throw a needle or stick at random onto a floor ruled with parallel lines, such as the cracks between floorboards or tiles, from the proportion of times that the stick lands crossing a crack you can estimate $\pi$; can we get $e$ as well? Yes, we can. All of these aspec...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author Cartwright, Julyan H. E
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 16.03.2021
Subjects
Mathematics - History and Overview
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Summary:Eureka 66, 55-57 (2020) If you throw a needle or stick at random onto a floor ruled with parallel lines, such as the cracks between floorboards or tiles, from the proportion of times that the stick lands crossing a crack you can estimate $\pi$; can we get $e$ as well? Yes, we can. All of these aspects have been discussed before, but I haven't seen them discussed in this way: that one can estimate both $\pi$ and $e$ with the same Buffon's needle experiment.
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2103.09347