Ella saw a castle near the village of Brizania from a distance. It was not big, but it looked quite solid. It seemed out of place in a small village like Brizania. But other than that, Brizania was just a castle.
It was a small village. Just by asking random people, Ella found out the whereabouts of the person she was looking for.
Although the villagers didn't know what the Pythagoreans were, when they heard about mathematics, they all pointed to the northwest corner of the village and said, "That's the house with the big yard. Be careful, there's
The master is a madman."
The place the villager pointed to was a dark wooden house, which was smaller than most villagers' houses. But the yard in front of the house was extremely huge. Put the two together, it was like a child wearing adult clothes.
, seems extremely disharmonious.
As soon as she walked into the yard, Ella was shocked - there was a huge circle drawn on the ground of the yard, surrounded by countless lines on the inside and outside, and densely written with symbols around it, which looked very similar.
A magic circle.
But the graphics deeply attracted Ella. She put the honey cans and furs aside, squatted on the ground and observed them carefully.
At first glance, there are thousands of those lines, which are messy. If you look closely, you can see that these lines form two polygons, sandwiching the circle from both inside and outside.
She touched the lines one by one with her hands, as if she could hear them eagerly saying something, but she couldn't hear it clearly.
Ella turned her attention to those symbols again. Those symbols were composed of numbers and arithmetic symbols. There was no doubt that someone was performing some extremely complex operation.
She read it line by line and found that the calculation process was not complete. The person who wrote the symbols seemed to be extremely good at mental arithmetic, and had omitted most of the steps, leaving only a few of the most complicated processes on the ground.
Ella tried to complete these omitted steps in her mind and understand what kind of work the owner was doing. In this way, the huge and empty space expanded in her mind again.
.
Those numbers first turned into entities one by one, and then were given life, arranged and combined by themselves in that empty space. They were born and merged in addition and multiplication, and died and separated in subtraction and division.
Ella was so focused on these symbols that she completely forgot that she was here to find someone. Time passed by, and Ella's body was covered with a red glow.
When the sky began to turn dark, she finally restored the entire process and reported the results calculated by the master:
"Between 3.1415926535 and 3.141415926536?"
"It's really admirable."
A voice suddenly rang in Ella's ears, which startled Ella. She had been focusing on calculations and didn't notice when a person stood next to her.
"Gregory."
Without waiting for Ella to ask questions, the man announced his family name to Ella.
Gu Lai
Gregory once sent an envoy to the Seven Hills Empire for Ella, and Ella also had a conversation with Gregory in Antilia. However, the two of them had never met each other.
Ella saw that Gregory's clothes were a little tattered, and he seemed to be very interested in her. He kept looking at her. After thinking for a while, he took out a few copper coins from his pocket and handed them to her with a "No".
In front of Gregory.
This regarded Gregory as a beggar. However, Gregory was neither angry nor embarrassed. Instead, he took the money from Ella generously and saluted Ella.
"Miss, thank you for your kindness. I will use these copper coins for people in need."
When he said this, Ella knew that she had just made a mistake. She scratched her face in embarrassment, and then suddenly remembered the purpose of her trip, and asked hurriedly: "Are you the owner of this place?"
?”
"Master?... No, I thought you were the master here. After all, you have such attainments in mathematics."
Ella suddenly became energetic and asked: "Can you also understand these graphics?"
"certainly."
Gregory leaned down, pointed at the polygon circumscribed by the circle, and pointed at the polygon inscribed, and said: "The owner here wants to calculate the circumference of the middle circle by pinching it from inside to outside, and then
This is used to obtain the value of pi with general meaning. The Egyptians believed that this value was 16/9 squared, which is approximately 3.16. The Babylonians believed that this value was 25/8, which was 3.125. The Indians recently believed that this value was 339/108.
, that is, 3.139. However, each of these values is far from satisfactory."
"Do you even know about India!?" Ella's eyes shone with a desire for knowledge. "Since the establishment of the Tianfang Empire, trade routes from India have been blocked. I only read about it in documents related to Alexander the Great.
Records of India!"
"I have been to India, but there is nothing to mention. This pi, 3.139 for Indians, was calculated only recently, but Archimedes of the Seven Hills Empire had already calculated it more than a thousand years ago.
Using the last six decimal places, we get the number 3.141851, which is much more accurate than India in terms of actual application results."
"Yes! 3.141581! Six decimal places! This is the most accurate number about pi that I have ever known! No one has surpassed Archimedes in more than a thousand years! But, look at this..." Ella
Pointing to the circle in front of him, he became a little slurred due to excitement, "3.1415926535! It's ten decimal places! There is no doubt that the owner here is a master of mathematics!"
"In terms of human ability, he is indeed a master." Gregory nodded, but then shook his head and said: "Unfortunately, pi is an infinite value, and it is impossible to achieve it with human ability.
If you have complete mastery of it, what will happen no matter how many digits you calculate? Looking at the end point that is not getting any closer, it just makes people realize their own insignificance and incompetence even more."
A curse suddenly came from inside the house: "Since you feel insignificant, get out of here! And that woman over there, take your dirty feet away! Stay away from my circle!"
Immediately following the curse, a dirty middle-aged man ran out. His hair was like a ball of black cotton, his face was like a piece of charcoal just pulled out of the fire, and his clothes were all in pieces.
The stain, a stain, seems to have not been cleaned for a long time.
Ella had never seen such a dirty person before, and could not help but frown and take a step back. Grigory looked completely unconcerned, stepped forward, saluted, and said: "Is it Master Gottfried? I
It’s Gregory who came here specially to study.”
"What to learn? Learn about your own insignificance? I have nothing to teach you!"
