Area of a circle Area of a circle In geometry, the area enclosed by a circle of radius is . Here the Greek letter represents a constant, approximately equal to 3.14159, which is equal to the ratio of the circumference of any circle to its diameter. One method of deriving this formula, which originated with Archimedes, involves viewing the circle as the limit of a sequence of regular polygons. The area of a regular polygon is half its perimeter multiplied by the distance from its center to its sides, and the corresponding formula (that the area is half the perimeter times the radius, i.e.
Area of a circle "area" and "circumference". The analytical definitions are seen to be equivalent, if it is agreed that the circumference of the circle is measured as a rectifiable curve by means of the integral The integral appearing on the right is an abelian integral whose value is a half-period of the sine function, equal to . Thus formula_6 is seen to be true as a theorem. Several of the arguments that follow use only concepts from elementary calculus to reproduce the formula formula_1, but in many cases to regard these as actual proofs, they rely implicitly on the fact that one can