Two Pages from the Book 'Arithmetica Infinitorum' by John Wallis (IMAGE)

American Institute of Physics

Two Pages from the Book 'Arithmetica Infinitorum' by John Wallis

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Two pages from the book "Arithmetica Infinitorum," by John Wallis. In the table on the left page, the square that appears repeatedly denotes 4/pi, or the ratio of the area of a square to the area of the circumscribed circle. Wallis used the table to obtain the inequalities shown at the top of the page on the right that led to his formula.

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