Pi, Pi, Pi
Why should you never talk to pi?
Because he’ll go on forever.
Happy Pi Day!
Sunday is really the best day of the week to celebrate this fun holiday. You get to relax and have pie all day right?
Well, not really.
Basically, Pi day is a day to celebrate a triumph in mathematics. Do you remember seeing this kind of question in class.
If you’re anything like me then you either hated math or didn’t understand. Looking at the picture is giving me instant flashbacks of stress and headaches.
Not everyone’s relationship towards math is as bad and that’s okay. This is an easier way to memorize Pi.
Welcome to Pi 101:
*Circumference- the distance around the widest part of a round object
*Diameter-the length of a straight line through the center of an object
Pi is the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter
Pi = circumference divided by diameter
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Ok, you get the point. It’s a big number. How big?
We already know 3.14159265359 is the main number, however, Pi actually doesn’t have a define number. It’s actually nearly impossible to effectively calculate.
Still confused?
Me too.
Did You Know: Suresh Kumar Sharma of India set a world record of reciting around 17,000 digits of Pi in 2015. It took over 17 hours to complete.
Now that’s impressive!
“Exploring pi is like exploring the universe”.
David Chudnovsky
Exploring its value can be an adventure of itself. Let’s start with it’s discovery.
- National Pi Day was found by Physicist Larry Shaw in 1988.
- It was also first celebrated in the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988
- It follows the month/day format, the first three digits of the date, which are 3/14, represent the value of pi or 3.14.
- The word for the constant was first used, by the Welsh mathematician William Jones, in 1706 as ‘pi’ is the first letter in the Greek word for “perimeter”.
- In 287–212 BC, Archimedes of Syracuse became the first man to use pi to calculate mathematics. He was known to have been so indulged in the work that he did not notice when the Roman invaded his city. It is often told how he yelled ‘do not touch my circles’ when a Roman soldier approached him, who then cut off his head.
- Mathematicians such as Archimedes, Fibonacci, François Viète, Adriaan van Roomen, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz all calculated pi by various methods. However, in 1706, Welsh mathematician William Jones introduced the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle’s circumference; pi.
- With over 6.4 billion digits in the constant, before it starts to recur, Pi requires about 133 years for a person to recite them all.
- Pi is the number of times a circle will fit in its circumference.
- On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224) recognizing March 14, 2009, as National Pi Day.
- Another cool fact is Pi Day also falls on Albert Einstein’s birthday
