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Ahmes

Ahmes was an Egytian priest who lived sometime before 1700 B.C. A surviving work of Ahmes is part of the Rhind Papyrus now located in the British Museum(Newman, 1956). The work is titled 'directions for knowing all dark things' and is a collection of problems in geometry and arithmetic. The problems are presented with solutions, but often with no hint as to how the solution was obtained.

Ahmes states without proof that a circular field with a diameter of 9 units is equal in area to a square with sides of 8 units(Beckman, 1971). In modern notation:

&pi(9/2)2 = 82

which leads to a value of Pi equal to 3.16049...


References