Introduction

• Take arround 30 matches

• Spread them equally
throughout the grid
• Count the number of
crossings between the grid
and the matches
• Compute 4*(number of
matches/number of
crossings)
Example
• Here we have 20 matches
•
• And we have 23 crossings
•
• So we compute 4*(20/23)
 Buffon’s needle
problem
« Suppose that we have of floor made of parallel
strips of wood, each the same width, and we
drop a needle onto the floor.What is the
probability that that the needle will lie across a
line between two strips ? »

Our problem is quite similar, in fact , it’s the

same with two times the number of lines .
What is happening ?
Let’s recall what we did :
• First we spread matches on the grid
• This process can be considered as random
• Every group computed (1/average number of crossings) and multiplied it by
4
• We calculated the average of those values
• This gave us an approximation of pi
This relies on the fact that the experimental average is almost the same as
the theoritical average
The formula that we saw : (experimental average)=(number of
crossings)/(number of matches) ~=~4/pi
Why is pi here ?
From now on, all measures will be expressed in terms of the width one
match.(The grid is one by one grid and a match has a lenght of 1)

Let’s find out why pi appears, to do this we have some new tools :
• Some curvy tissue that is twice as long as one match.
• One disc of diameter 1 (that we’ll consider as a circle)
•
• Your job : use these tools to come up with an explanation of why pi
appears (not necessarily a proof)
Some clues :
• Try calculating the average number of crossings using the tissue
• Compare it with the one you get with the matches
• Does the average number of crossings depend on the shape of the
curve ?
• What does it depend on ? (and what kind of relation can we get ?)
• Try to make an hypothesis based on what you noticed
• Test your hypothesis using the circle
Experimental solution
• By replicating the experience with the tissue we notice that the
average numbers of crossings is two times bigger than the average
number of crossings when you use matches
• We deduce by this fact that the average number of crossings does
not depend on the shape of the curve
• Also we can make the assumption that the relationship between the
average number of crossings and the lenght is linear. Average
number of crossings = C*(length of the curve)
• Knowing this we can compute C by using the circle, the circle always
crosses the grid 4 times so it’s average number of crossings is 4 and
it’s length is pi. Thus we get C=4/pi
An idea of the proof
• The key argument of the previous proof is that the average number of
crossings does not depend on the shape of the curve and is proportional
to the lenght of the curve
• Main idea : We cut the curve into tiny pieces that are straight
• First we prove the proportionality result on straight lines of lenght 1/n
(with n an integer)(This relies on the linearity of the expectation)
• Then we prove it for straight lines of rational lenght
• The we prove it for straight lines of irationnal lenght
• Then we prove it for curve that are the union of straight lines
• Then we prove it for the curve of any shapes