Progression of the first 10,000 digits of π. by Cristian Ilies Vasile. Created with Circos.

Martin Kryzwinski is far too brilliant a scientist with much too rich a resume for us to try to describe him. A brief quote from his bio is better than anything we could think of:

“I try to make people think and feel good by creating visualization tools and information graphics that combine analytical clarity with an artistic dimension. Real science should look just like in movies.”

He created Circos. From his blog:

“Circos is a software package for visualizing data and information. It visualizes data in a circular layout — this makes Circos ideal for exploring relationships between objects or positions. There are other reasons why a circular layout is advantageous, not the least being the fact that it is attractive. …Circos is ideal for creating publication-quality infographics and illustrations with a high data-to-ink ratio, richly layered data and pleasant symmetries. You have fine control each element in the figure to tailor its focus points and detail to your audience.”

Regarding: ART OF π:

“Cristian Ilies Vasile had the idea of representing the digits of π as links that connected segments associated with successive digits. The image is composed of links (segment:position) 3:0 → 1:1 → 4:2 → 1:3 → 5:4 …”

Seriously, folks. The number Π. While we all know it means something, few of us know what that something is. It is just ‘Π.’ We thank Martin Kryzwinski for enabling us to see the physical world through the eyes of his beautiful program. We thank Cristian Ilies Vasile for using Circos to help us to see how beautiful Π is.