![\"Squaring_the_circle.svg\"](\"https:\/\/paularowinska.files.wordpress.com\/2019\/03\/squaring_the_circle.svg_.png?w=300\")
To square the\u00a0circle\u00a0we\u2019d have to construct a square root of \u03c0. However,\u00a0a German mathematician\u00a0Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann proved that \u03c0 is a transcendental number, which means it\u2019s not a root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. Technicalities aside, the important consequence is that we cannot construct pi with a circle\u00a0compass and straightedge. Not because it requires a genius not yet born, but because maths just doesn’t allow it.<\/p>\n
However, this result didn\u2019t discourage Edward J. Goodwin, a physician and amateur mathematician from Indiana. He found the way of squaring the circle and even published his result in the\u00a0<\/span>journal\u00a0<\/span>American Mathematical Monthly<\/span>. His \u201cproof\u201d contained the following ground-breaking discovery.<\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore, it has revealed the ratio of the chord and arc of ninety degrees, which is as seven to eight, and also the ratio of the diagonal and one side of a square which is as ten to seven, disclosing the fourth important fact, that the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four[.] (source: Indiana Pi Bill)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to Goodwin, the ratio between the diameter (2R) and circumference (2\u03c0R) equals 5\/16. Hold on, doesn\u2019t this mean that… Yes, he claimed that \u03c0=3.2!!!<\/p>\n And he didn\u2019t stop there. In 1987 he convinced\u00a0the Indiana General Assembly to pass the House Bill 246, today called the Indiana Pi Bill, which contained his \u201cresults\u201d. Also in the Senate\u2019s Committee on Temperance\u00a0nobody raised eyebrows over this mathematical nonsense.<\/p>\n Luckily for Indiana, when the senators were discussing this ingenious idea, professor C.A. Waldo from\u00a0Purdue University\u00a0happened to visit Indianapolis. He couldn\u2019t stand observing this pointless debate (as a side note, I\u2019m writing this article while listening to British politicians discussing Brexit, and I can\u2019t decide which of these two sounds more ridiculous), so he gave the legislators a short\u00a0maths\u00a0lesson.<\/p>\n