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Archimedes got much closer
Papyrus of Ahmes, dated c. 1650 B.C. circa 1000 years before Book of Kings, shows that ancient Egyptians had value 3 1/6 = 3.167. The Babylonian value from same time <big><math>\pi</math></big> 3 1/8 = 3.125<ref>Boyer, A History of Mathematics, 2nd Edition</ref>. Both these values are within 1 percent of pi.
Papyrus of Ahmes, dated c. 1650 B.C. circa 1000 years before Book of Kings, shows that ancient Egyptians had value 3 1/6 = 3.167. The Babylonian value from same time <big><math>\pi</math></big> 3 1/8 = 3.125<ref>Boyer, A History of Mathematics, 2nd Edition</ref>. Both these values are within 1 percent of pi.
* The first theoretical calculation seems to have been carried out by [[Archimedes of Syracuse]] (287-212 BC). He said that pi was between 223/71 and 22/7. This is ten times better than the Egyptian and Babylonian values: within 0.04% of pi.
In 1873, Abraham Shanks spent twenty years calculating <big><math>\pi</math></big> to 707 places, but made a mistake in his calculation and only 527 of them were correct. When electronic computers were developed, <big><math>\pi</math></big> was soon calculated to tens of thousands, millions, and billions of places. As of 2002, the record is held by Yasumasa Kanada of Tokyo University at 1,241,100,000,000 digits. That result was never printed out.
In 1873, Abraham Shanks spent twenty years calculating <big><math>\pi</math></big> to 707 places, but made a mistake in his calculation and only 527 of them were correct. When electronic computers were developed, <big><math>\pi</math></big> was soon calculated to tens of thousands, millions, and billions of places. As of 2002, the record is held by Yasumasa Kanada of Tokyo University at 1,241,100,000,000 digits. That result was never printed out.