Good News - Today is Pi Day!

britexpat
By britexpat

TODAY IS Pi Day. The day mathematicians will gather to celebrate the mystery of science's most famous strange number — Pi.

Pi, or the Greek letter π, starts with 3.1415926535 . . . ad infinitum without repeating. It is the figure obtained when the circumference of a circle is divided by its diameter, and it cannot be expressed as a fraction, making it an irrational number. Computers have calculated it to more than one trillion digits past the decimal point.

March 14 has been celebrated as Pi Day for more than 20 years after Larry Shaw, a physicist at the San Francisco Exploratorium science exhibition, decided to start it as a "geek holiday". The event has snowballed into an international phenomenon, with Pi parties and educational events in many different countries.

The symbol for Pi was first used in 1706 by William Jones, but became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. Pi has intrigued and exasperated mathematicians and scientists for milleniums — how can such a simple concept as the circle be so difficult to pin down? Pi goes beyond geometry, it is a basic tool in architecture and is used to calculate economic statistics and a wide range of other complex computations.

At the Exploratorium tomorrow at 1.59pm a parade of people will process approximately 3.14 times around a shrine to Pi — and then eat pie. The day is also celebrated in schools and the US Congress has recognised it officially as a way to encourage maths and science education.

For devotees, there are Pi plates for your piece of pie, Pi T-shirts and even a limerick competition at www.piday.org .

At Pi parties, people will compete to recite as many decimal places for Pi as possible. They will need to show some endurance if they are to beat the world record held by Lu Chao, a 24-year-old graduate student from China, who took 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite to the 67,890th decimal place of Pi without an error.

GO GEEKS!

By britexpat• 14 Mar 2009 18:52
britexpat

Not a cake, but a Pie please.. there's still time.. Make the radius of the pie 3.14 inches please..

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 17:24
anonymous

If I'd known, I would have baked a cake!

By Homealone• 14 Mar 2009 15:31
Homealone

its realy informative britexpat and happy Pi day for all of You

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 14:49
anonymous

is it true this PI day!!! hahaha!

By Eagley• 14 Mar 2009 14:45
Eagley

OMG!!! I didn't understand a word of the OP!!!

Happy pee day to all!

*****************************************

Don't want no drama,

No, no drama, no, no, no, no drama

By Saurabh7• 14 Mar 2009 14:21
Saurabh7

...maybe she got lucky or she isnt human

By britexpat• 14 Mar 2009 14:17
britexpat

You have to have an interest or be a geek.. A young lady in the USA has managed to recall corretly the value of Pi up to 2000 digits...

By Saurabh7• 14 Mar 2009 14:15
Saurabh7

http://ja0hxv.calico.jp/pai/epivalue.html

PI=3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

How to pull that off Brit?

By qatarisun• 14 Mar 2009 14:09
qatarisun

Computers have calculated Pi to more than one trillion digits past the decimal point... so obviously Archimedes could spend the rest of his life trying to calculate the area of a circle, getting closer and closer .. but would never reach the right result...without Piiiiiii!

Go Pi Go!!!

I love this number!

Like everything about Math..

*********************

“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

By qatarisun• 14 Mar 2009 14:05
qatarisun

brit.. 3.14 times everything?? ok. 3 times is pretty much understandable.. but how u gonna manage 0.14?

*********************

“You become responsible forever for what you have tamed”. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 13:51
anonymous

I'll go for the 'religious' solution and I will eat three pieces.

By SAMAEL• 14 Mar 2009 13:50
SAMAEL

I asked someone a question about Pi and their answer was neverending

____________________________

By cynbob• 14 Mar 2009 13:48
cynbob

I believe I will eat 3.14 pieces of 'pie' in the spirit of celebrating pi day!!! Yum! ;)

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 13:36
anonymous

That's a religious issue, brit. They would probably have tried to refer to the 'trinity' to make it sound more plausible. You know how these guys are.

By britexpat• 14 Mar 2009 13:34
britexpat

I recall reaing once that the Bible also contains references to Pi, but the value is 3....

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 13:28
anonymous

Actually Archimedes (200 BC) used the 'exhaustion' method to calculate the area of a circle. Triangles inside and triangles outside. And getting closer and closer to the circle's outline from both sides. However, he could never reach the circle. And that's why we don't have a integer value for Pi.

By adey• 14 Mar 2009 13:27
adey

Piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

By anonymous• 14 Mar 2009 13:20
anonymous

I think Pi is innocent. Our concepts of circles are wrong.

By mjamille28• 14 Mar 2009 13:17
mjamille28

lol brit....

By britexpat• 14 Mar 2009 13:16
britexpat

I'm going to attempt to do all things 3.14 times today :)

By mjamille28• 14 Mar 2009 13:14
mjamille28

happy Pi day to all the geeks out there! :)

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