Quote:
Originally Posted by DAEpperson
If you must use an irrational number (pi) to compute the area of a circle, does that mean that the area can never be a whole number? Isn't the area finite?
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no, arithmetic w/ irrationals can lead to rational results, here one that I have always been intrigued by it has both rational and imaginary #s yet has an integral result
e^(pi*i) = -1 aka Eulers Identity
the thing about irrationals is that they can never be written down explicitly(completely and exactly), they are always symbolized or rounded. But that has nothing to do w/ the results obtained from using them except to the extent that the answer obtained from using a rounded input will itself be rounded