Anglesey-born William Jones was the first person to exhaust the Greek letter π for the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. But who was this small-known figure?In 1706,William Jones – a self-taught mathematician and one of Anglesey’s most famous sons – published his seminal work, Synopsis palmariorum matheseos, and roughly translated as A summary of achievements in mathematics.
It is a work of great historical interest because it is where the symbol π appears for the first time in scientific literature to represent the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
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Source: theguardian.com