Seminar Prof Patrick D Weidman

On the Digits of Pi Patrick Weidman Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Colorado at Boulder We show, using the method of Galperin (2003), how the digits of Pi may be gen- erated to any accuracy using the collision of one heavy billiard ball into another with subsequent bouncing off a wall. It is assumed that the billiard balls are point masses and that there is no loss of energy in each collision. We extend the work of Galperin to find particular aspects of the motion and two invariants of the motion: the ball-ball collision invariant and the ball-wall collision in- variant.