n geometry, the circumference (from Latin circumferens, meaning "carrying

around") is the perimeter of a circle or ellipse.[1] That is, the circumference

would be the arc length of the circle, as if it were opened up and

straightened out to a line segment.[2] More generally, the perimeter is the

curve length around any closed figure. Circumference may also refer to the
circle itself, that is, the locus corresponding to the edge of a disk. The
circumference of a sphere is the circumference, or length, of any one of its
great circles.

Contents

● 1
● Circle
○ 1.1
○ Relationship with π
○
● 2
● Ellipse
●
● 3
● See also
●
● 4
● References
●
● 5
● External links
●

Circle
The circumference of a circle is the distance around it, but if, as in many
elementary treatments, distance is defined in terms of straight lines, this
cannot be used as a definition. Under these circumstances, the
circumference of a circle may be defined as the limit of the perimeters of
inscribed regular polygons as the number of sides increases without

bound.[3] The term circumference is used when measuring physical objects,

as well as when considering abstract geometric forms.

 When a circle's diameter is 1, its circumference is

{\displaystyle \pi .}

When a circle's radius is 1—called a unit circle—its circumference is

{\displaystyle 2\pi .}

Relationship with π
The circumference of a circle is related to one of the most important
mathematical constants. This constant, pi, is represented by the Greek
letter

{\displaystyle \pi .}

The first few decimal digits of the numerical value of

{\displaystyle \pi }

are 3.141592653589793 ...[4] Pi is defined as the ratio of a circle's

circumference

{\displaystyle C}

to its diameter
{\displaystyle d:}

{\displaystyle \pi ={\frac {C}{d}}.}

Or, equivalently, as the ratio of the circumference to twice the radius. The
above formula can be rearranged to solve for the circumference:

{\displaystyle {C}=\pi \cdot {d}=2\pi \cdot {r}.\!}

The use of the mathematical constant π is ubiquitous in mathematics,

engineering, and science.

In Measurement of a Circle written circa 250 BCE, Archimedes showed that

this ratio (

{\displaystyle C/d,}

since he did not use the name π) was greater than 3

10
/

71

but less than 3

1
/

by calculating the perimeters of an inscribed and a circumscribed regular

polygon of 96 sides.[5] This method for approximating π was used for

centuries, obtaining more accuracy by using polygons of larger and larger

number of sides. The last such calculation was performed in 1630 by

Christoph Grienberger who used polygons with 1040 sides.

Ellipse
Main article: Ellipse § Circumference

Circumference is used by some authors to denote the perimeter of an

ellipse. There is no general formula for the circumference of an ellipse in
terms of the semi-major and semi-minor axes of the ellipse that uses only
elementary functions. However, there are approximate formulas in terms of
these parameters. One such approximation, due to Euler (1773), for the
canonical ellipse,

{\displaystyle {\frac {x^{2}}{a^{2}}}+{\frac {y^{2}}{b^{2}}}=1,}

is

{\displaystyle C_{\rm {ellipse}}\sim \pi {\sqrt {2\left(a^{2}+b^{2}\right)}}.}

Some lower and upper bounds on the circumference of the canonical

ellipse with
{\displaystyle a\geq b}

are:[6]

{\displaystyle 2\pi b\leq C\leq 2\pi a,}

{\displaystyle \pi (a+b)\leq C\leq 4(a+b),}

{\displaystyle 4{\sqrt {a^{2}+b^{2}}}\leq C\leq \pi {\sqrt

{2\left(a^{2}+b^{2}\right)}}.}
Here the upper bound

{\displaystyle 2\pi a}

is the circumference of a circumscribed concentric circle passing

through the endpoints of the ellipse's major axis, and the lower bound

{\displaystyle 4{\sqrt {a^{2}+b^{2}}}}

is the perimeter of an inscribed rhombus with vertices at the

endpoints of the major and minor axes.

The circumference of an ellipse can be expressed exactly in terms of the

complete elliptic integral of the second kind.[7] More precisely,

{\displaystyle C_{\rm {ellipse}}=4a\int _{0}^{\pi /2}{\sqrt {1-e^{2}\sin

^{2}\theta }}\ d\theta ,}

where
{\displaystyle a}
is the length of the semi-major axis and

{\displaystyle e}
is the eccentricity

{\displaystyle {\sqrt {1-b^{2}/a^{2}}}.}

See also
● Arc length – Distance along a curve
● Area – Size of a two-dimensional surface
● Circumgon
 ● Isoperimetric inequality – Geometric inequality which sets a lower
bound on the surface area of a set given its volume
● List of formulas in elementary geometry – Wikipedia list article

References
● ^ San Diego State University (2004). "Perimeter, Area and Circumference"
(PDF). Addison-Wesley. Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 October 2014.
● ^ Bennett, Jeffrey; Briggs, William (2005), Using and Understanding
Mathematics / A Quantitative Reasoning Approach (3rd ed.), Addison-Wesley, p.
580, ISBN 978-0-321-22773-7
● ^ Jacobs, Harold R. (1974), Geometry, W. H. Freeman and Co., p. 565, ISBN
0-7167-0456-0
● ^ Sloane, N. J. A. (ed.). "Sequence A000796". The On-Line Encyclopedia of
Integer Sequences. OEIS Foundation.
● ^ Katz, Victor J. (1998), A History of Mathematics / An Introduction (2nd ed.),
Addison-Wesley Longman, p. 109, ISBN 978-0-321-01618-8
● ^ Jameson, G.J.O. (2014). "Inequalities for the perimeter of an ellipse".
Mathematical Gazette. 98 (499): 227–234. doi:10.2307/3621497. JSTOR
3621497.
● ^ Almkvist, Gert; Berndt, Bruce (1988), "Gauss, Landen, Ramanujan, the
arithmetic-geometric mean, ellipses, π, and the Ladies Diary", American
Mathematical Monthly, 95 (7): 585–608, doi:10.2307/2323302, JSTOR 2323302,
MR 0966232, S2CID 119810884

External links
 ● Numericana - Circumference of an ellipse

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