We believed that Blaise Pascal invented the "Pascal Triangle"
in 1654. But no, this was an invention of the Chinese. The original
was then called Precious Mirror of the Four Elements that said to
be created by Chu Shih Chieh that had been published in 1303. He
also called his invention "The Tabulation system for unlocking
binomial coefficients."
Pi is used to compute the volume of a sphere and area of a circle.
After the introduction of the value of pi in three decimal places
by Archimedes, and Ptolemy computed for four decimal places, no
advancement for accuracy was achieved in the Western world. Liu
Hui, after inscribing a polygon with 192 sides in a circle, thus
calculated a value of pi as 3.14159. But in the 5th century AD,
the father and son tandem of Tsu Chung-Chih and Tsu Keng-Chih came
up to obtain the most accurate value of pi which is 3.1415929203.
The calculation of pi by Adriaen Anthoniszoon only gave 3.14929,
approximately extending only to seven places – three digits short
to that of the Tsu family.
The use of Abacus for calculation was made of beads inserted in
a rod. This is an early version of calculator. Chinese folks invented
abacus around 2nd century BC.
