Pi - by Kate Bush

A great observation from Simon Singh's recent article in the Telegraph.

Chris McEvoy pointed out that Aerial, the new album from Kate Bush, has the mathematically flawed song "Pi". Although Bush seems to be singing the digits of Pi, McEvoy decided to check.

All was well for the first 78 decimal places, but suddenly disaster struck: "Then it went to hell in a handbasket," said McEvoy, "when she missed out the next 22 digits completely before finishing with a precise rendition of her final 37 digits."

He was right to point out Kate Bush's error, particularly as she seems to be trying to capture the essence of being a mathematician: "Sweet and gentle and sensitive man, With an obsessive nature and deep fascination for numbers, And a complete infatuation with the calculation of Pi."

Of course, the Bible [1] reckoned that Pi was 3 - so things are improving if we've now got million selling albums offering Pi to 78 decimal places.

[1] 1 Kings 7 verse 23: "He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim [...]. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it."