Irrational Numbers

You know your numbers. You can count one, two, three blocks. You can share half of your big, red apple. Those numbers are so neat. But I am a different kind of number. I am a bit of a secret. I am a number that goes on and on and on and never ever stops. I am like a long, sparkly ribbon that just keeps unrolling forever. You can't write all of me down because I have no end. I am a little bit mysterious and a lot of fun.

A long, long, long time ago, even before your grandparents were born, there were some very smart people. They lived in a warm, sunny place called Ancient Greece around the 5th century BCE. These people were called the Pythagoreans, and they loved numbers. They thought all numbers were tidy and neat, like blocks stacked in a perfect tower. One day, they drew a perfect square in the sand. Its sides were easy to measure. One, two, three, four sides. But then, they tried to measure the line from one corner to the other. And guess what they found. They found me. I was not a neat and tidy number. I was a big surprise. I wiggled and wobbled and didn't fit their rules at all. It was like finding a bouncy ball in a box of square blocks.

At first, the smart people thought I was very strange. A number with no end. But soon, everyone learned that I am very special and very important. I am an Irrational Number. That's my name. You can find me everywhere. I am in the perfect round shape of a bouncy ball and the wheels on a car that go round and round. I am in the pretty, swirly spiral of a seashell you find on the beach. I show everyone that the world is full of amazing surprises. Things don't have to be perfectly neat to be wonderful and beautiful.