About Pi Zine

Pi Zine is a personal perspective electronic magazine dedicated to exploring the relationship between mathematics and religion. While there are currently many available resources on science and religion, a dearth of material exists which directly explores the math/theology connection. Pi Zine is designed to help fill this gap. Pi Zine is a personal perspective magazine in that it primarily represents the insights of one person, Sarah Voss. Dr. Voss has been studying, collecting information, and writing about the connection between mathematics and religion since the middle 1980s. Pi Zine is the newest way in which she shares her research. However, Pi Zine is also intended as an interactive medium for sharing. The "Pi" in Pi Zine stands for "People's Insight." Ultimately, it is only through the collective input of many individuals that the subtleties of the impact of math on religion will be fully fleshed out. Readers are invited into active conversation about mathematics and religion in Pi Zine's page called "Latest Thoughts,". For inclusion in the next month's issue, please send your comments, questions, and/or insights to sarahvoss@cox.net, Attn: "Latest Thoughts." Your perspectives (which may occasionally be edited) are very welcome!

In mathematics, pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Its numerical value is approximately 3.1416. This is only an approximate value because pi is an irrational number and, hence, can never be precisely determined. Nonetheless, many individuals throughout history have attempted to do just that. In the early 1600s, for instance, Ludolph van Ceulen of the Netherlands spent so much of his life computing pi to thirty-five decimal places that the number was engraved on his tombstone. And only a few years ago the Chudnovsky brothers calculated pi (with the help of their supercomputer) to well over two billion digits. If it were printed in ordinary type, this approximation of pi would stretch from the east to the west coast of the United States. Even so, the two brothers were unable to find any predictable pattern to the digits. Occasionally, this illusive nature of pi has frustrated those searching for a precise value. The governing legislature in one state, for instance, once "resolved" the problem by decreeing the value of pi to be exactly three. The search for an exact value of pi is a little like the search for an exact understanding of God. Some renderings are clearly better than others, but even the best effort seems to fall short of an accurate description. Such a precise understanding simply isn't feasible in our present space/time- bound world. Mathematicians, however, have developed the tools to explore higher-dimension worlds, and in these hyperspace realms unexpected and sometimes unsettling discoveries are made. Perhaps someday some as yet invisible pattern to pi will emerge in higher dimensional mathematics. If so, maybe we'll also be one dimension clearer in our understanding of God!