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Download the 4 sprites and 4 scripts of "Buffon's needle" and open it in Scratch Project Notes
another - weird, inaccurate but entertaining - Monte Carlo method for empirically aproximating Pi by randomly dropping needles on parallel floor boards and counting the intersections with the cracks.
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Very nice. I was very impressed by this fact it is really cool to see it done. eventhough my Pi is getting a little too big 3.38...
Thanks, DrSuper! Actually Buffon's Needle will yield rather precise results if implemented correctly (i.e. with extremely thin 'needles' and regular distances between floor boards). But I wanted to demonstrate the funny method more than to create something exact. However, there are plenty of java-applets around in the net performing very accurately
(view all replies)i was wonderig if you might want to enter this in the Scratch Pi Day Contest. See below links for more info. (link to project)">(link to project) (link to gallery)">(link to gallery)
it is closer to the actual pi in the beggining, then it slowley gets bigger. this is amazing programming
hmm, forest, I actually have no idea...
just wanted to ask a question.. What is it that creates such a delay in processing that projects which work ok offline struggle to actually work online?
Pi? Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter. It's the same on every circle possible. I memorized it up to 21 decimal places. :) 3.141592653589793238462.
is all i remember
3.141592653589793238462643383279
What's pi?
wow
I'm pretty certain I had to program this about 30 years ago as a homework assignment. At that time, it seemed to give a pretty accurate value of pi...maybe it was a different technique but it sure looks familiar. Maybe I can find my notes....Very interesting, even if not accurate.
Yeah and Jens happens to be one of the best adult people programmers in my opinion he is really good! I like this project
Adudeok, So what if Jens is an adult? There can be adults on scratch to.
wait jens r u like serously a 40 yr old man?
You is Crazy"
Jens, You've caused me to waste a bunch of time researching "Buffon's needle". Googling turned up legitimate sounding explainations of why the method should converge to pi, and others that claim you need to "cheat" by choosing the length of the needle relative to the distance between the joints. I'll have to waste even more time tomorrow trying to figure out what to believe. Very nice.
This project does indeed *not* compute pi accurately, nor does it 'converge' progressively. It is just an illustration of a historical anectode which has in past times been actually tried by a number of rather serious scientists <grin>. If you're looking for something more precise please have a look at David Hellam's cool Monte Carlo project: (link to project)">(link to project)
This gets very inaccurate when the "value" of "pi" is greater than or less than approximately 3.1415926 (the true value of pi). This project sets the value of pi completely off, because the value of pi is always constant, and this is just a rational number value stated for pi, but pi is an irrational number.
try this (link to project)">(link to project)
Wow. I like the praphics.
Cool. I remember this. Converges slower than I expected.