Where Does it End?
Remember watching Lamb Chop’s Play-Along in the 90s and singing its infectious ending theme, “The Song That Never Ends,” for as long as we could stand it? Pi is a little bit like that. We narrow it down to 3.1415926 for daily use, but thousands of years later, we’re still digging up new decimal places for the infinitely-expressed number. In 2021, a supercomputer discovered 62.8 trillion of pi’s digits.
“The Song That Never Ends” can loop itself seamlessly for eternity because of its lyrical structure, but this is where pi differs. The numbers never repeat or follow any logical sequence, making it an irrational number with no end in sight. At this point, we continue uncovering decimal places for the fun of it rather than expecting any groundbreaking advancements because 3.1415926 has served us well enough.