How did Pi get it's name?

Anybody know if this is a known fact or not? If so, anybody know the answer.

Of course. Everybody knows that. :)

everybody knows that πR²

That took me a FULL thirty seconds....:P

I'm a moron.

pi are square.

pi is simply one of the letters of the ancient greek alphabet. as to why it came to signify the ratio of circumfrence to diameter i couldn't tell you. the OED doesn't have a satisfactory answer either--i just checked it out. best it could say is that archimedes used it as such.

The only thing I can think of is that it was originally drawn as an upside down capital J (with no cross bar)

With a little imagination, one can picture this as referring to the circumfrence and diameter of a circle--it may be a sort of picturegram type thing that just stuck. But I'm making that up entirely.

in mathematics, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The symbol p was popularized by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in the early 18th century to represent this ratio. Because pi is irrational (not equal to the ratio of any two whole numbers), an approximation, such as 22/7, is often used for everyday calculations; to 31 decimal places pi is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795.

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Pi_through_the_ages.html
Have fun... ROTFLMAO
Google is your friend.

still doesn't say why it's called pi, though

just changed my mind

The symbol Pi was first used to represent Archimedes Constant (another name for Pi) in 1706 by William Jones, although the notation didn't become standard until it was adopted by Leonard Euler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

Of course, Pi is approximately 3.141592655897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989

Magnum, P.I.

:shrug:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

:P