by Caryl Teh
For this special celebration, we have two special treats prepared for you – (1) a quiz for those of you who would like to dive into some mathematics-related questions, and (2) for those of you who want a quick and light read about Pi day, and the number in general, we’ve listed some fun facts for you below the quiz.
- 14 March marks Pi Day, the annual celebration of pi.
14 March was selected because the numerical date (3.14) represents the first three digits of pi. It also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday (14 March 1879).
- The first Pi Day celebration
When: Pi day was founded in 1988 by physicist Larry Shaw. Where: it took place at Shaw’s place of work – the Exploratorium, a San Francisco-based interactive science museum. What: the celebration featured a circular parade and the eating of fruit pies.
- 2015 was a special Pi Day celebration for Pi Day fanatics.
Celebrations took place on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m., the numerical date and time together representing the first 10 digits of pi, 3.141592653.
- Pi – the name & symbol:
Pi wasn’t always known as pi. Before the 1700s, people called it “the quantity which when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference”. What a mouthful! Finally, in 1706, William Jones began using the symbol for pi (Greek letter “π”). He was an Anglo-Welsh philologist (someone who studies language) and friend of Sir Isaac Newton. The name & symbol were made popular by the mathematician Leonhard Euler.
- Calculating Pi, an irrational number (meaning it is indefinitely long or never ends).
By definition, this means that we will never be able to find all the digits of pi. By 1665, Isaac Newton calculated pi to 16 decimal places. Computers hadn’t been invented yet, so this was a pretty big deal! In the early 1700s Thomas Lagney calculated 127 decimal places. In 2017, the record was broken when a Swiss scientist computed more than 22 trillion digits of pi. The calculation took over a hundred days.
The calculation of pi is also a stress test for a computer. It works just like a digital cardiogram since it indicates the level of activity within the computer’s processor.
- Since the exact value of pi can never be calculated, we can never find the accurate area or circumference of a circle.
- There is an entire language made from the number Pi called “Pi-lish”.
The number of letters in each word match the corresponding digit of pi. So the first word has three letters, the second has one, the third has four, and so on. This language is more popular than you might think. Software engineer Michael Keith wrote an entire book, called Not a Wake in this language.
- Pi lovers are heavily opposed by Tau enthusiasts. (even if we’re not celebrating it this month, we felt that it is especially important to mention at least Tau)
To learn more about the debate, we recommend xkcd’s or the Scientific American’s explanation. If you’re interested in digging deeper into the other side, check out their website. Tau day is the annual celebration of the circle constant which takes place annually on 28 June.
You can find more information about Pi Day at their official website https://www.piday.org/.
Sources:
https://www.history.com/news/where-did-pi-day-come-from
https://www.piday.org/pi-facts/
