How to calculate PI yourself (Score 5, Funny)

One way to calculate for yourself the value of pi is to drop a lot of toothpicks onto a large piece of paper that has lines drawn on it!

Here's how it works. You'll need several boxes of toothpicks. Get a large piece of chart paper, and draw parallel lines on it, from one side to the other. The lines should be separated by a distance just slightly larger than the length of a toothpick.

From a height of about one metre, drop a measured number of toothpicks onto the chart paper, so that they all fall randomly somewhere on the paper. Count how many toothpicks are touching a line (or would be, if they weren't resting on another toothpick).

Repeat this process as many times as you can. Lots of people can do it at once. All that's important is that, each time you drop some toothpicks, you write down how many you dropped, and how many of those ended up touching a line. When you're done, find a total for each quantity.

You now have all the numbers you need to calculate Pi:

c ... toothpick length (in mm) <BR>
a ... line separation (in mm) <BR>
N ... total number of toothpicks dropped <BR>
M ... total number of intersections <BR>
(c must be less than a) <BR>

Now here's the formula you need to calculate Pi:

PI = 2cN / aM

Fill them in the formula, and work out your own value of Pi!