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The 2019 Pi Day art celebrates digits of $\pi$ with hundreds of languages and alphabets. If you're a kid at heart—rejoice—there's a special edition for you!

$\pi$ Approximation Day Art Posters

2019 $\pi$ has hundreds of digits, hundreds of languages and a special kids' edition.
2018 $\pi$ day
2017 $\pi$ day
2016 $\pi$ approximation day
2016 $\pi$ day
2015 $\pi$ day
2014 $\pi$ approx day
2014 $\pi$ day
2013 $\pi$ day
Circular $\pi$ art

The never-repeating digits of $\pi$ can be approximated by $22/7 = 3.142857$ to within 0.04%. These pages artistically and mathematically explore rational approximations to $\pi$. This 22/7 ratio is celebrated each year on July 22nd. If you like hand waving or back-of-envelope mathematics, this day is for you: $\pi$ approximation day!

Want more math + art? Discover the Accidental Similarity Number. Find humor in my poster of the first 2,000 4s of $\pi$.

The $22/7$ approximation of $\pi$ is more accurate than using the first three digits $3.14$. In light of this, it is curious to point out that $\pi$ Approximation Day depicts $\pi$ 20% more accurately than the official $\pi$ Day! The approximation is accurate within 0.04% while 3.14 is accurate to 0.05%.

first 10,000 approximations to $\pi$

For each $m=1...10000$ I found $n$ such that $m/n$ was the best approximation of $\pi$. You can download the entire list, which looks like this

$m n m/n relative_error best_seen? 1 1 1.000000000000 0.681690113816 improved 2 1 2.000000000000 0.363380227632 improved 3 1 3.000000000000 0.045070341449 improved 4 1 4.000000000000 0.273239544735 5 2 2.500000000000 0.204225284541 7 2 3.500000000000 0.114084601643 8 3 2.666666666667 0.151173636843 9 4 2.250000000000 0.283802756086 10 3 3.333333333333 0.061032953946 11 4 2.750000000000 0.124647812995 12 5 2.400000000000 0.236056273159 13 4 3.250000000000 0.034507130097 improved 14 5 2.800000000000 0.108732318685 16 5 3.200000000000 0.018591635788 improved 17 5 3.400000000000 0.082253613025 18 5 3.600000000000 0.145915590262 19 6 3.166666666667 0.007981306249 improved 20 7 2.857142857143 0.090543182332 21 8 2.625000000000 0.164436548768 22 7 3.142857142857 0.000402499435 improved 23 7 3.285714285714 0.045875340318 24 7 3.428571428571 0.091348181202 ... 354 113 3.132743362832 0.002816816734 355 113 3.141592920354 0.000000084914 improved 356 113 3.150442477876 0.002816986561 ... 9998 3183 3.141061891298 0.000168946885 9999 3182 3.142363293526 0.000245302310 10000 3183 3.141690229343 0.000031059327$

As the value of $m$ is increased, better approximations are possible. For example, each of $13/4$, $16/5$, $19/6$ and $22/7$ are in turn better approximations of $\pi$. The line includes the $improved$ flag if the approximation is better than others found thus far.

next best after 22/7

After $22/7$, the next better approximation is at $179/57$.

Out of all the 10,000 approximations, the best one is $355/113$, which is good to 7 digits (6 decimal places).

$pi = 3.1415926 355/113 = 3.1415929$

I've scanned to beyond $m=1000000$ and $355/113$ still remains as the only approximation that returns more correct digits than required to remember it.

increasingly accurate approximations

Here is a sequence of approximations that improve on all previous ones.

$1 1 1.000000000000 0.681690113816 improved 2 1 2.000000000000 0.363380227632 improved 3 1 3.000000000000 0.045070341449 improved 13 4 3.250000000000 0.034507130097 improved 16 5 3.200000000000 0.018591635788 improved 19 6 3.166666666667 0.007981306249 improved 22 7 3.142857142857 0.000402499435 improved 179 57 3.140350877193 0.000395269704 improved 201 64 3.140625000000 0.000308013704 improved 223 71 3.140845070423 0.000237963113 improved 245 78 3.141025641026 0.000180485705 improved 267 85 3.141176470588 0.000132475164 improved 289 92 3.141304347826 0.000091770575 improved 311 99 3.141414141414 0.000056822190 improved 333 106 3.141509433962 0.000026489630 improved 355 113 3.141592920354 0.000000084914 improved$

For all except one, these approximations aren't all good value for your digits.

For example, $179/57$ requires you to remember 5 digits but only gets you 3 digits of $\pi$ correct (3.14).

Only $355/113$ gets you more digits than you need to remember—you need to memorize 6 but get 7 (3.141592) out of the approximation!

You could argue that $22/7$ and $355/113$ are the only approximations worth remembering. In fact, go ahead and do so.

approximations for large $m$ and $n$

It's remarkable that there is no better $m/n$ approximation after $355/113$ for all $m \le 10000$.

What do we find for $m > 10000$?

Well, we have to move down the values of $m$ all the way to 52,163 to find $52163/16604$. But for all this searching, our improvement in accuracy is miniscule—0.2%!

$pi 3.141592653589793238 m n m/n relative_error 355 113 3.1415929203 0.00000008491 52163 16604 3.1415923873 0.00000008474$

After 52,162 there is a slew improvements to the approximation.

$104348 33215 3.1415926539 0.000000000106 208341 66317 3.1415926534 0.0000000000389 312689 99532 3.1415926536 0.00000000000927 833719 265381 3.141592653581 0.00000000000277 1146408 364913 3.14159265359 0.000000000000513 3126535 995207 3.141592653588 0.000000000000364 4272943 1360120 3.1415926535893 0.000000000000129 5419351 1725033 3.1415926535898 0.00000000000000705 42208400 13435351 3.1415926535897 0.00000000000000669 47627751 15160384 3.14159265358977 0.00000000000000512 53047102 16885417 3.14159265358978 0.00000000000000388 58466453 18610450 3.14159265358978 0.00000000000000287$

I stopped looking after $m=58,466,453$.

Despite their accuracy, all these approximations require that you remember more or equal the number of digits than they return. The last one above requires you to memorize 17 (9+8) digits and returns only 14 digits of $\pi$.

The only exception to this is $355/113$, which returns 7 digits for its 6.

You can download the first 175 increasingly accurate approximations, calculated to extended precision (up to $58,466,453/18,610,450$).

VIEW ALL

1-bit zoomable gigapixel maps of Moon, Solar System and Sky

Mon 22-07-2019

Places to go and nobody to see.

Exquisitely detailed maps of places on the Moon, comets and asteroids in the Solar System and stars, deep-sky objects and exoplanets in the northern and southern sky. All maps are zoomable.

3.6 gigapixel map of the near side of the Moon, annotated with 6,733. (details)
100 megapixel and 10 gigapixel map of the Solar System on 20 July 2019, annotated with 758k asteroids, 1.3k comets and all planets and satellites. (details)
100 megapixle and 10 gigapixel map of the Northern Celestial Hemisphere, annotated with 44 million stars, 74,000 deep-sky objects and 3,000 exoplanets. (details)
100 megapixle and 10 gigapixel map of the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, annotated with 69 million stars, 88,000 deep-sky objects and 1000 exoplanets. (details)

Quantile regression

Sat 01-06-2019
Quantile regression robustly estimates the typical and extreme values of a response.

Quantile regression explores the effect of one or more predictors on quantiles of the response. It can answer questions such as "What is the weight of 90% of individuals of a given height?"

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Quantile regression. (read)

Unlike in traditional mean regression methods, no assumptions about the distribution of the response are required, which makes it practical, robust and amenable to skewed distributions.

Quantile regression is also very useful when extremes are interesting or when the response variance varies with the predictors.

Das, K., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Quantile regression. Nature Methods 16:451–452.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2015) Points of significance: Simple linear regression. Nature Methods 12:999–1000.

Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue

Sat 30-03-2019
Robust regression generates more reliable estimates by detecting and downweighting outliers.

Outliers can degrade the fit of linear regression models when the estimation is performed using the ordinary least squares. The impact of outliers can be mitigated with methods that provide robust inference and greater reliability in the presence of anomalous values.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. (read)

We discuss MM-estimation and show how it can be used to keep your fitting sane and reliable.

Greco, L., Luta, G., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. Nature Methods 16:275–276.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2016) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Influential or nuisance. Nature Methods 13:281–282.

Two-level factorial experiments

Fri 22-03-2019
To find which experimental factors have an effect, simultaneously examine the difference between the high and low levels of each.

Two-level factorial experiments, in which all combinations of multiple factor levels are used, efficiently estimate factor effects and detect interactions—desirable statistical qualities that can provide deep insight into a system.

They offer two benefits over the widely used one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) experiments: efficiency and ability to detect interactions.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Two-level factorial experiments. (read)

Since the number of factor combinations can quickly increase, one approach is to model only some of the factorial effects using empirically-validated assumptions of effect sparsity and effect hierarchy. Effect sparsity tells us that in factorial experiments most of the factorial terms are likely to be unimportant. Effect hierarchy tells us that low-order terms (e.g. main effects) tend to be larger than higher-order terms (e.g. two-factor or three-factor interactions).

Smucker, B., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Two-level factorial experiments Nature Methods 16:211–212.

Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2014) Points of significance: Designing comparative experiments.. Nature Methods 11:597–598.

Happy 2019 $\pi$ Day—Digits, internationally

Tue 12-03-2019

Celebrate $\pi$ Day (March 14th) and set out on an exploration explore accents unknown (to you)!

This year is purely typographical, with something for everyone. Hundreds of digits and hundreds of languages.

A special kids' edition merges math with color and fat fonts.

116 digits in 64 languages. (details)
223 digits in 102 languages. (details)

Check out art from previous years: 2013 $\pi$ Day and 2014 $\pi$ Day, 2015 $\pi$ Day, 2016 $\pi$ Day, 2017 $\pi$ Day and 2018 $\pi$ Day.

Tree of Emotional Life

Sun 17-02-2019

One moment you're $:)$ and the next you're $:-.$

Make sense of it all with my Tree of Emotional life—a hierarchical account of how we feel.

A section of the Tree of Emotional Life.