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3.141592653589793238462643383279... If you thought that these are the first few digits of π, a transcendental number defined as the ratio of the circumference and the diameter of a circle, you were of course quite right!
But if you thought that that's all there is to know about it, think again — and listen to Kate Bush to appreciate the poetry of maths...
As J. Freedom du Lac writes in the Washington Post of Wednesday, 9 November 2005,
(...) Not even five minutes into her long-overdue double album, "Aerial," we find the idiosyncratic artist singing tenderly about a man "with an obsessive nature and deep fascination for numbers/and a complete infatuation with the calculation of pi." To illuminate her point, Bush then transforms the digits that make up the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter into one of the most atypical if strangely compelling choruses in recent memory.
"Threeeeeeee/Point-one four one five niiiiinne," she purrs in that swooping, otherworldly three-octave voice of hers. "Two six five three five eight nine seven nine three twooooo," etc., ad (nearly) infinitum.
Indeed, by the time the jazzy, atmospheric song, "Pi," ends, Bush has carried the titular mathematical constant out to more than 100 decimal places. And yet, you somehow find yourself wanting to hear more. (...)
Does it matter, then, that 22 digits somehow got missing on the way — and there's also a misprint in the booklet with a single digit "0" earlier on replaced by a two digits "31" (but it's correct in the song)... This is π as given in the booklet (top) compared to "the real thing" (below):
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058231974944592307816406286208______________________8214808651328230664709384460955058223... 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820_97494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223...
Maybe the "sweet and gentle and sensitive man" was a bit careless with his beloved numbers — or am I just missing the hidden message?
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