Thus, in 1 Kings 7:23, the word "line" is written Kuf Vov Heh, but the Heh does not need to be there, and is not pronounced. With the extra letter, the word has a value of 111, but without it, the value is 106. (Kuf=100, Vov=6, Heh=5). The ratio of pi to 3 is very close to the ratio of 111 to 106. In other words, pi/3 = 111/106 approximately; solving for pi, is pi = 3.1415094... (Tsaban, 78). This figure is much more accurate than any other value that had been calculated up to that point, and would hold the record for the greatest number of correct digits for several hundred years afterwards. Unfortunately, very few people know this fact. Archimedes of Greece was the first person to make serious use of the pi calculation. In 287 to 212 BC, he focused on the polygons' perimeters as opposed to their areas, in order to find the areas of two regular polygons: the polygon inscribed within the circle and the polygon within which the circle was circumscribed. Because the actual area of the circle falls between the areas of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons, the areas of the polygons gave upper and lower bounds...

Archimedes realized he had not found the value of pi but only an approximation within those limits. In this way, he demonstrated that pi is between 3 1/7 and 3 10/71. A similar method was used by Zu Chongzhi in China who calculated the value of the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter as 355/113. To compute this accuracy for pi, he needed to have begin with an inscribed regular 24,576-gon and performed lengthy calculations involving hundreds of square roots carried out to 9 decimal places. Through the following centuries, the use of the concept of pi traveled to the Arab nations and then Europe.