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Pi hiding in prime regularities

Pi hiding in prime regularities on HackerTube: recommended by 3 Hacker News commenters across 3 separate months, 2017–2019.

3Blue1Brown

explainer · intermediate · evergreen

Open on YouTube

3Blue1Brown shows how pi emerges from prime numbers via complex numbers and sums of squares, culminating in a formula for approximating pi.

Why Hacker News recommends it

Praised as a beautiful, understandable proof and a favorite among 3Blue1Brown videos.

people recommended it
3
separate months
3
strong recommendations
2
discussed on HN
2017–2019
“This is a really beautiful proof that connects complex numbers and primes to derive a formula for calculating pi.”
— pqh, Nov 2017, in “The Exterior Algebra and Central Notions in Mathematics (2015) [pdf]”

What HN commenters said

3 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.

zerbFeb 2018Strongly recommends

3Blue1Brown has been recommended on HN before ( [link] ) But it's so great I think it bears bringing up in case anyone reading this comment has missed it. This channel animates math proofs, shows you the intuition behind fields of math, and constructs subjects in such a way as to make you feel like you could have invented them yourself. You'll still need a good textbook or something to go with the videos, but they cement the understanding in your mind very well and even open the door to more formal proofs. My favorite video is ▶ this video . You'll have to take an additional step to get a complete proof (hint: read and work through the One Sentence Proof), but this is a beautiful piece of mathematics, shown in an understandable manner.

in “Physics Travel Guide: a tool that makes learning physics easier” · View on HN

pqhNov 2017Strongly recommends

This is a really beautiful proof that connects complex numbers and primes to derive a formula for calculating pi. It should only require high-school algebra prereqs. ▶ this video If you want to truly follow the proof, there's one little bit on the chi function in there which is connected to something called the One Sentence Proof. This looks rather esoteric and takes a bit of pondering to wrap your head around, but again only really requires high-school level algebra. Doing proofs like this is what math is really about. This is how you come to really understand. And this video also happens to be entertaining in how well-put-together it is.

in “The Exterior Algebra and Central Notions in Mathematics (2015) [pdf]” · View on HN

throwawaymathJan 2019Recommends

This is a half hour 3Blue1Brown video: ▶ this video If you're willing to watch at least the first half of it, I think it'll give you a very intuitive grounding for 1) why integers have unique polynomial representations, and 2) why that's related to (semi)prime factorization.

in “Mathematicians Seal Loophole to Breaking RSA Encryption” · View on HN

Topics & tags

Recreational & visual mathPure mathematicspiprime numberscomplex numbersgaussian integers3blue1brown