Eye on Pi
2009 March 14
US celebrates 14th March as Pi Day and luckily it’s also Einstein’s birthday, and from this year Pi day will be recognized officially after U.S. House of Representatives approved House Resolution 224. The legislation supports the designation of Pi Day and its celebration in an attempt to advance the importance math and science in educational programs. Pi day celebrations was started at San Francisco’s Exploratorium 22 years ago by physicist Larry Shaw. In US date format March 14th is represented as 3/14 and that’s the basic reason to refer it as Pi Day apart from it is birthday of scientific maestro Albert Einstein. According to Exploratorium website
Pi Day celebrations culminate, appropriately enough, on March 14 at 1:59pm. That’s the third month, the fourteenth day, at 1:59pm, corresponding to the first 6-digits of Pi.
But now Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts around the world, and this can be ideal way to attract students to pursue their careers in math and science.
Photo by davis.jacqueWays to celebrate Pi Day
- Try some Pi poems
- Try to listen songs based on digits of pi (how about Kate Bush’s song “Pi” from her latest album)
- Try some Pi-Pi Dance (dance while rotating in circle, inspired from Poi-Poi)
- Try to memorize as many digits of Pi as you can (1000+ will be perfect)
- Try to eat pie (Most important of all)
- Try to find your Birthday in Pi
- Try to text some Pi jokes
More about Pi
Pi r squared? Nope! Pie are round, cakes are square!
Pi is one of the most important mathematical constant whose value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space. Pi is an irrational number meaning it will continue infinitely without repeating, which makes it difficult to calculate exact value of Pi. Pi was known by the Egyptians, who calculated it to be approximately 3.1604. The first theoretical calculation of a value of Pi was that of Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 BCE), who found the value of Pi somewhere about 3.14. Due to efforts of mathematicians such as Gregory, Leibniz, and Euler in the 17th and 18th century it was possible to calculate more refined value of Pi. The symbol for Pi (Greek symbol π) was introduced by the English mathematician William Jones in 1706, and later this symbol was adopted by Euler in 1737 and became the standard symbol for Pi. According to Dale’s π page
Physicists have noted the ubiquity of pi in nature. Pi is obvious in the disks of the moon and the sun. The double helix of DNA revolves around pi. Pi hides in the rainbow, and sits in the pupil of the eye, and when a raindrop falls into water pi emerges in the spreading rings. Pi can be found in waves and ripples and spectra of all kinds, and therefore pi occurs in colours and music. Pi has lately turned up in superstrings.
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Pi r squared? Nope! Pie are round, cakes are square
Eye on Pi: US celebrates 14th March as Pi Day and luckily it’s also Einstein’s birthday, and from this year Pi d.. http://tinyurl.com/baeo96
Really interesting, both for the celebration day and the history of Pi.