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Mathematicians have stumbled upon an unexpected method for representing the value of Pi.

The improvement of the description of the decimal value of pi, a famous math constant that measures the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, appeared through the phenomena of the string theory and the actions of two mathematicians in providing a better theory regarding particle collisions.

(sakkmesterke/Getty Images)

Thus, Sinha from India’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and his associate, Arnab Priya Saha, first explored high-energy physics in quantum theory to establish a more accurate representation of particle coupling with the help of local field theory. Another interesting point that they were able to find was a new approach to counting with the help of this legendary figure called pi.

Meanwhile, the value of pi remains constant at about 3. 141592 and remains irrational in nature, though current calculations have been able to hit a value of pi with as much as 105 trillion digits. The new innovative explanation of Saha and Sinha: this simplified series representation of pi makes it easier for scientists to obtain the value of pi from more elaborate mathematical computations with quantum scattering in the particle accelerators.

Thus, in terms of its essence, this series allows mathematicians to get through its conditions and find the value of pi as quickly as possible, adhering to a clear list of instructions familiar to every gourmet keen on trying a spicy dish on the table. With out this recipe, it becomes very difficult to pinpoint the vitamins and the specific percentage that needs to be included in the preparation of the meal.

Researchers have been struggling to discover what combination of numbers or components can represent pi, and it was attempted in early 1970s trying to represent pi in this way, “but it was quickly dropped for being too complex,” Sinha mentions.

Sinha’s group was looking at something else entirely: methods of how best to model subatomic particle interactions through mathematical equations with the least number of factors and their complexities.

Saha, a postdoctoral researcher in the group, was also dealing with this so-called ‘optimization problem’ of attempting to characterise these interactions – which emit all sorts of queer and elusive particles – according to different permutations in terms of mass, vibration and a broad range of bizarre activity that the particles are capable of, among others.

What eased it was a graphical depiction referred to as the ‘Feynman diagram’, which is an illustration of the algebraic terms for the energies involved in the interaction and scattering of two particles.

Not only it provided the efficient model of particle interactions that reproduces effectively all the stringy features up to certain energy but it also gave the new formula for value of pi which is very close to the series representation of pi that was first given by Indian mathematician S Madhava in 15th century.

The conclusions provided are completely hypothetical at the moment, yet, they could be useful on some occasions.

As the authors of the published paper note, one of the main opportunities of the new representations in this paper is to study the experimental data for the hadron scattering in terms of the suitable modifications of these representations.

It will also be helpful for our new representation to connect with the still speculative celestial holography, a paradigm that attempts to unify quantum mechanics with general relativity by projecting a volumetric spacetime hologram.

The rest of us may not need to know what exactly makes up the famed irrational number in detail but researchers can do so with much ease.

The research has been published in Physical Review Letters.

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