One crazy cool way to calculate the value of π is with probability! If you randomly drop a bunch of toothpicks on a sheet with long, straight parallel lines, the toothpick will land on one of those lines with a probability that depends on π. You can learn about this phenomenon, "Buffon's Needle", in a real life experiment or with a computer simulation.
How many toothpicks do you need to get close to the real value of π?
Comments