ShmoopTube

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Circles, a la Shmoop. Greetings, members of King Area’s Court!

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I, Sir Cumference, am the one who suggested our great Round Table.

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I know it's caused you all some issues in the past…

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…but switching to a rectangular table would be a big mistake.

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Let me tell you why, dear chaps. First, a circle has no corners, so if we have

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to run suddenly off to battle…

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…or to the loo…

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…we won't hurt ourselves on the corners. While rectangles have two measurements: length

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and width, circles have a radius and a diameter. A circle's radius is the distance from its

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center to the outside…

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… and its diameter is the distance from one side of the circle all the way to the

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opposite side…

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… or, simply put, 2 times its own radius. How much simpler could it be?

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Not yet convinced? Well, the best thing about the Round Table

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is all the pie that comes with it! I don't mean apple or pumpkin pie.

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We can get those at the market. I mean “pi.” 3-point-1-4.

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The Holy Grail of Numbers. For instance, the distance around the circle

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depends on its radius as well as pi!

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We simply plug in 2 times pi times the radius, and we get our Circumference.

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We can also substitute the 2 and the radius with the circle’s diameter to get our circumference.

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But if we're trying to calculate the area of a circle, we'll need pi too.

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Pi times the radius squared will give us the Area of our circle.

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In conclusion, pi makes the world go round. And if the world goes round, why shouldn't

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our table?

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