Why is pi here? And why is it squared? A geometric answer to the Basel problem

From the creator

A most beautiful proof of the Basel problem, using light. Help fund future projects: https://www.patreon.com/3blue1brown An equally valuable form of support is to simply share some of the videos. Special thanks to these supporters: http://3b1b.co/basel-thanks This video was sponsored by Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/3b1b Brilliant's principles list that I referenced: https://brilliant.org/principles/ Get early access and more through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/3blue1brown The content here was based on a paper by Johan Wästlund http://www.math.chalmers.se/~wastlund/Cosmic.pdf Check out Mathologer's video on the many cousins of the Pythagorean theorem: https://youtu.be/p-0SOWbzUYI On the topic of Mathologer, he also has a nice video about the Basel problem: https://youtu.be/yPl64xi_ZZA A simple Geogebra to play around with the Inverse Pythagorean Theorem argument shown here. https://ggbm.at/yPExUf7b Some of you may be concerned about the final step here where we said the circle approaches a line. What about all the lighthouses on the far end? Well, a more careful calculation will show that the contributions from those lights become more negligible. In fact, the contributions from almost all lights become negligible. For the ambitious among you, see this paper for full details. If you want to contribute translated subtitles or to help review those that have already been made by others and need approval, you can click the gear icon in the video and go to subt

Published 2018-03-02 · Watch on YouTube ↗
Availability and playback restrictions are controlled by the original channel.