Ludolph van Ceulen

Ludolph van Ceulen (28 January 1540–31 December 1610) was a German mathematician. Born in Hildesheim, Germany, like many Germans during the Catholic Inquisitions, he emigrated to the Netherlands.

Calculating ?

Ludolph van Ceulen spent a major part of his life calculating the numerical value of the mathematical constant ?, using essentially the same methods as those employed by Archimedes some 1800 years earlier. He published a 20-decimal value in his 1596 book Van den Circkel ("On the Circle"), later expanding this to 35 decimals. After his death, the "Ludolphine number",

Related Topics:
? - Archimedes

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:3.14159265358979323846264338327950288...,

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was engraved on his tombstone in Leiden. The tombstone was later lost, but was restored in 2000.

Related Topics:
Tombstone - 2000

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