Where does πr² come from?
Published 2026-08-19
Part 1 defined area, Part 2 defined π, Part 3 defined length. The claim "the disc of radius has area " now names a specific number on each side, and the library proves the two are equal (A disc of radius r has Riemann area pi r squared; in particular the unit disc has area pi) in five numbered steps. This part walks them.
The area is an integral
By Part 1's definition, the closed disc of radius is the region between the graphs and , so its area is the integral of the height (Riemann area between two continuous graphs and the disc as a vertically simple region):
The r² is pure scaling
Substitute (Substitution: if is differentiable on with integrable and is continuous on an interval containing , then ). The radius factors out of the square root and the , leaving times the unit-disc integral. The theorem splits in two: measures nothing but scale, and the entire question is why the unit disc has area .
Where π enters
Substitute on . There cosine is nonnegative, so by the Pythagorean identity (Parity and the Pythagorean identity for sine and cosine), and the area becomes . The addition formulas (The addition formulas for sine and cosine) split into . The half integrates to zero by the fundamental theorem (The second fundamental theorem: if is differentiable on with and is integrable, then ), since vanishes at both endpoints. The constant half integrates to half the length of the interval (If on then for every partition ; in particular every constant function is integrable, with ), and the leading factor of turns that into the full length. The unit disc has area π.
That is where π enters: as the length of . The substitution's limits are , and is exactly the first positive zero of cosine, which Part 2 took as the definition of π.
The same answer by hand
Archimedes ran the inner-and-outer squeeze on the circle two thousand years before integrals. The library proves the polygon squeeze: regular -gons inscribed in and circumscribed about the unit circle have perimeters and with , increasing and decreasing respectively, both converging to the circumference (Inscribed regular-polygon perimeters increase to 2 pi, while circumscribed perimeters decrease to 2 pi). The number itself can be computed from proved series and products: Gregory-Leibniz with an explicit remainder bound (The Gregory-Leibniz series: pi over four equals 1-1/3+1/5-1/7+...), Wallis (Wallis's product: pi over two is the limit of the finite Wallis products), Viète (Viete's nested-radical product: two over pi is the limit of the finite cosine products).
One door left
The four requirements of Part 1 assign an area to every region the squeeze can trap. Which sets is that, and is there a set the squeeze can never trap? That is the last part of this rabbit hole: how deep does it go?