reference to Buffon's needle

[tkphd]

While Buffon's needle is an elegant and interesting mathematical problem which produces an estimate of π, it is not at all what we're doing in this episode. Indeed, the algorithm used here is so simple as to be obvious to anyone who knows the formula for the area of a circle.

I recommend removing the attribution.

[psteinb]

Interesting idea. I would respectfully disagree for the sake of completeness. ;-) But, if you think Buffon is mentioned too prominently, I'd agree to demoting this appearance. Not sure how though.

[tkphd]

I have been unable to find a reference linking Buffon to the algorithm we use, which is Summing a Circle's Area. Intriguingly, Buffon is not mentioned at all on that page, nor on the Chronology of Computation of π, presumably because much more accurate methods were already known.

Buffon's Needle appears related, but is a more complex construction that is more difficult to grasp. I think that providing a reference for interested learners to read more about this method, and other ways to estimate π, is worthwhile. I believe that a direct link to the Summing a Circle's Area write-up on Wikipedia would be more helpful. If we can find direct evidence that Georges-Louis Leclerc (Comte de Buffon) thought about this technique, we can edit Wikipedia to reflect the fact. If not, given the long history of π, we should not make an unsupported attribution.

If we want to implement a named algorithm, let's adopt the Madhava-Leibniz series (Madhava worked it out 300 years before Leibniz).