The Pi Trivia Game

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Finally this is your chance to pay tribute to the magnificent transcendental number that we have all grown to love! Here are 25 questions (given to you 5 at a time), picked randomly from my pi question database. Get ready for the thrill of your lifetime, the ultimate challenge, The Pi Trivia Game!

1. Which of the following is an arctangent formula for pi?

arctan 1
3*arctan 1/256 + 2*arctan 1/17
4/3*arctan 1
16*arctan 1/5 - 4*arctan 1/239
2*arctan 2

2. What is the value of e^(i*pi)?

the square root of -1
approximately 10
pi squared
-1
1.414

3. The physicist Willebrord Snellius (1580-1626) found polygons which better approximated the perimeter of circles than do inscribed and circumscribed polygons. Better perimeter approximations lead to more quickly converging pi approximations. What scientific discovery is Snellius best known for?

the laws of reflection and refraction
general relativity
exploding pop-tarts
the photoelectric effect
the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics

4. Pi is ubiquitous in the branch of mathematics known as statistics. The maximum height of what famous curve is equal to 1/sqrt(2*pi)?

a sine curve
the bell (Gaussian) curve for a standard normal distribution
the step function y = int(x) between x=-17 and x=0
the Sarstedt curve
Euler's population density curve

5. Pi shows up many places in physics, including simple harmonic motion. Given a simple pendulum of length h, what is the period for a small oscillation (the period is the time it takes to complete one full oscillation)?

3c/(pi*h^2), where c is the speed of light
2*pi*sqrt(h/g), where g is the gravitational constant
e^(pi*h), where e is the base of the natural logarithm
h/pi
(27*pi^2)/(h*[g^2]*[e*c]^3)

eve@eveandersson.com