THE CIRCLE
The number Pi (π) is the most enigmatic number we know, it is a fundamental mathematical constant and has been linked to human beings since time immemorial.
In Babylon they already knew and studied this number that expresses the geometric relationship between the circumference and its diameter. In Babylonian clay tablets, mathematical problems appear that confirm that the Babylonians were accurately approaching PI and, in their studies, they observed that the perimeter of a circle was approximately three times greater than its diameter.
It also appears in Egyptian texts but not as a number but as the manifestation from an idea or concept, in the Egyptian expression 355/ 113, where 355 represents the circumference and 113 the diameter. PI is found in the design and construction of the Great Pyramid as the ratio between the perimeter of the base and the height of the base.
It also appears repeatedly in different forms in many passages of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, in the Egyptian sacred texts and in the Vedas, when we assign numerical values to letters (symbols). This method of numerically relating ideas and principles to the gods in ancient scriptures shows us incredible links between different cosmogonies and PI.
PROPERTIES
The theory establishing the relationship between the length of the circumference and its diameter comes from Greece. Archimedes discovered that the number PI was approximately 3.14 by increasing the number of sides of the polygons inscribed in a circle. But it was Euclid who first demonstrated that the ratio between a circle and its diameter is a constant quantity, and it is a simple division from which the same number is always obtained as a result, being invariant to the size of the circle. This isapproximately equal to 3.14 and we can use it to calculate the circumference of a circle from the radius or diameter.
PI is an irrational number, so it is impossible to know its exact value, since its decimals extend to infinity; and to this we must add that it lacks any periodic pattern, in addition to other singularities. PI is used in a large number of formulas and mathematical operations: in geometry and trigonometry, in calculus, probability and statistics; and it is a constant in physics, chemistry and biology.
The circle is the area contained in a circumference, this being its perimeter. Thus, the circle is the geometrically perfect figure, since the lines that depart from the center to any of its points always have the same length. The circle has no beginning and no end, and all its points are equidistant from the center. Here arises the powerful symbolism of the circle and its center, symbolizing totality and unity.
SYMBOLOGY
The different interpretations that can be given to a sign or symbol can be infinite and the meaning that they can express or hide goes beyond the apparent. We can intuit how the shape of the dome of the firmament, the Sun and the Moon, as well as the shape of the eyes, became the origin and the basis of all other symbols.
For the ancient philosophers, the circle expresses unity and wholeness, including the relationship of man and the whole of Nature. The primordial symbolism of the circle is the same in all cultures and is always considered as the representation of cosmic completeness, of heaven and spirit; it is the symbol of the energy that governs all planes of Nature, the expression of the dynamism of the creative powers that sustain order in Nature.
For the ancient Greeks it was the symbol of Perfection, of the Whole; therefore, the circle is represented in a symbolic way by the number One. Everything is cyclical in Nature and the movement of the circle symbolizes renewal, change and infinity. The center of the circle represents the spirit, the origin of the irradiation of the Whole. It symbolizes the possibility of expansion because it is the place where the forces are in perfect balance, since it is equidistant to all the points of the circumference. The center is the point of control and the immobile axis of the circle, of the rotation of the cycle of becoming. It is the point of origin from which all force flows and the place where the pressure returns and rests, where everything merges into the One.
The circumference, in turn, represents the manifestation of unity, plurality and also the temporal, the matter. As the circumference of the circle seems to have no beginning or end and suggests mobility, another way of expressing change within this circular movement is the spiral. The great symbolic charge of the spiral lies in the fact that each turn represents a cycle of evolution different from the previous one; the expansion that occurs in the turning movement, the growth and the advance.