Circle a triangle whose base has the length of the circle's circumference and whose height equals the circle's radius, which comes to multiplied by the radius squared: Equivalently, denoting diameter by "d", that is, approximately 79% of the circumscribing square (whose side is of length "d"). The circle is the plane curve enclosing the maximum area for a given arc length. This relates the circle to a problem in the calculus of variations, namely the isoperimetric inequality. Equation of a circle<br> In an "x"–"y" Cartesian coordinate system, the circle with centre coordinates ("a", "b") and radius "r" is the set of
Area of a circle good approximation to the circumference. To compute "u" and "U" for large "n", Archimedes derived the following doubling formulae: Starting from a hexagon, Archimedes doubled "n" four times to get a 96-gon, which gave him a good approximation to the circumference of the circle. In modern notation, we can reproduce his computation (and go further) as follows. For a unit circle, an inscribed hexagon has "u" = 6, and a circumscribed hexagon has "U" = 4. Doubling seven times yields The last entry of the table has ⁄ as one of its best rational approximations; i.e., there is no better