Friday Poem
© 22 Aug 2014 Luther Tychonievich
Licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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Friday Poem

About the number π.


Per the pattern, the next line would have had zero iambs, which encouraged me to stop where I did.

Untitled Poem

A number famous now
for how
it helps us think of circles’ size.
It’s both the width-to-edge-length ratio
And twice the area an inscribed square to be its circle’d have to grow.
Why both the same?
Nor area nor edge-length can the other blame.
That they’re the same is well accepted, but
I think it’s quite the rut.
Could not geometry come up with two?
It’s not as though it lacks for numbers, even long ones not a few.
There’s square-roots everywhere it seems, and plenty other numbers have their quirks,
But just one’s used by circles and by spheres in all their works.
Perhaps because it’s very long the god of roundness thought “‍that’s all I know‍”?
It’s just as well it’s so:
Pi may be long,
It may be oddly strong,
But that’s not why the learning of its digits is so often done:
It’s known because there’s only one.
Because we know all round-thing constants are the same,
It seems more tame.

But why won’t it behave as other numbers do?
No repetition can it shew.
Rational it’s not.
It violates such rules.
And any pattern ever sought is never found by any tools.
Transcendent is the word.
Forever long.
It’s lack of pattern is absurd. Why is it so strong?
It’s easy to define yet hard to know or write at any length at all.
Why such a number for a simple ball?

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