Today is National Pi Day
It’s March 14 – National Pi Day, a day to celebrate the number that is beloved by math geeks and wizards the world over – 3.14.
For those of you who, like me, doodled during math class, here’s a refresher – Pi represents the relationship between a circle’s diameter (its width) and its circumference (the distance around the circle). And I know this because that’s what I read over at PiDay.org, the website dedicated to this numerical phenomenon.
I also know this – You can celebrate National Pi Day with a slice of pie. How about this beauty from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen – Boysenberry-Strawberry glazed Pi…er, I mean Pie.
If you know any bakeries or restaurants celebrating with great deals on pies or desserts, let us know in the comments section below.
- Pi Day.
Pi Day is this Monday, March 14, 2011 and it is a celebration of that number 3.14159265~. No, it is not the food but many Pi Day people will eat pie. Pi is the π – pi – number which is that number which is commonly truncated to 3,14 which otherwise would go on, and on, and on. See the reasoning for making it Pi Day on March 14th every year is to reflect the number pi (3,14), which is 3 is for the month March, and 14 for the day.
So what is Pi good for? If you haven’t had a math class for a while here are the most common equations that Pi is used for calculated circles area and the volume of a cylinder.
To calculate the surface area of a circle you use the equation – Area = pi multiplied by the radius squared.
To find the volume of a cylinder you can calculate this by using Pi multiplied by the radius squared multiplied by the height.
Another thing to do for Pi Day is set the the Guiness Book of World’s Record for the most digits of the number Pi memorized. The current record holder is Chao Lu from China who recited from memory 67.890 places of the number Pi on November 20, 2005.
You may think it fit to call them nerds, those who would celebrate something so irrational.
But they don’t mind. Their love is unknowable, transcendent and infinite; it goes on forever.
For mathematicians all over the world, March 14 is the day to express that love.
March 14 is Pi Day (3.14, get it?), when number geeks celebrate the most fascinating one of all – pi, a.k.a. 3.141592653589793238462…
They reflect on its endless, unpatterned beauty by eating pie, reciting as many digits as possible and punning unabashedly.
“Pi Day gives mathematicians something to celebrate” = says Lino Demasi, a 29-year-old PhD math student, who as an undergrad at the University of Waterloo was featured in the 2005 documentary easy as pi for his ability to recite more than 100 correct digits by memory.
Waterloo’s Math Society is Ontario’s epicentre of Pi Day celebrations, where upwards of 400 students will line up for free pie and watch the school’s best pi memorizers recite hundreds of the nonrepeating digits.
“It’s a big deal for us” – said Anna Merkoulovitch, the society’s vice-president of activities. “This year we’re also serving pi-neapple juice.”
A quick lesson – Pi, represented by the Greek letter p, is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — or the distance around a circle to the length across.
It is most commonly used for calculating the area of a circle or volume of a cylinder, but is required for a variety of formulas in math, science and engineering.
The source of much fascination, however, is that pi is impossible to calculate precisely; it continues infinitely without repetition.