La Baguette Math\'emagique

Abstract

If you throw a needle or stick at random onto a floor ruled with parallel lines, such as the cracks between floorboards or tiles, from the proportion of times that the stick lands crossing a crack you can estimate $\pi$; can we get $e$ as well? Yes, we can. All of these aspects have been discussed before, but I haven't seen them discussed in this way: that one can estimate both $\pi$ and $e$ with the same Buffon's needle experiment.