Sunday, March 14

Happy Pi Day!


I'm taking a short break from Pi Day festivities to share some fun π facts with you.
  • Visit Google to see their Pi logo for the day.
  • In 1897, Indiana almost passed a bill that made π = 3.2.
  • A good estimate of π is 22/7.
  • Middle school students are very impressed that I know this much of π: 3.1415926. And that is pretty lousy by math teacher standards.
  • Alison likes to sing me a song about π. (Please post it in the comments, Al!)
  • My favorite math fact is that e ^ (i*π) + 1 = 0. It's proof that God exists.
  • Do you know what π is? It is the very special constant that occurs when you divide the circumference by the diameter of every circle.
  • Mr. Boast, my high school math teacher, wore lots of π shirts... Pumpkin Pie, Pie in the Sky... and I thought they were cool.
  • Akira Haraguchi took 16 hours to recite 100,000 digits of π. From memory.
I'm having Shepherd's Pie and Peanut Butter Pie for dinner. How are you celebrating Pi Day?

(This post was posted as close to official Pi time as I could get... March 14 at 1:59 PM.
by Rachel

8 comments:

  1. Fun fact of the day from my favorite economics blog (that's right, I read economics blogs too): MIT releases its undergraduate admission decisions at 1:59 pm today. (That is, at 3.14159). Maybe if Finley grows to share his mother's love of pi, he should apply there. Or culinary school.
    ReplyDelete
  2. Mmmmm...A day to celebrate pie. I'll start with homemade apple please! I can divide that circle with a fork and hope it doesn't go to my diameter which is anything but constant ; o ).

    Is there a logarithmic relationship for π? Hapπ π Day!

    Celebrate by going to Alice in Wonderland because Lewis Carroll was a mathematician who added mathematical commentary to his stories about Alice and who loved riddles.
    ReplyDelete
  3. Time for a math cheer:
    Sine, Sine, Cosine, Sine!
    3-point-1-4-1-5-9!
    ReplyDelete
  4. Mary, my family and I really enjoyed your comments!

    Rachel - so how exactly does that equation prove that God exists? (Sorry, I'm not a math wiz.)
    ReplyDelete
  5. Some girls posted scripture verses on their mirrors, but we plastered ours with that equation that "proves" God. I think we may have etched it into a table at a restaurant once, too.

    The cheer is:

    E to the U, D-U, D-X
    E to the X, D-X
    SECANT, COSINE, TANGENT, SINE
    THREE POINT ONE FOUR ONE FIVE NINE
    INTEGRAL, RADICAL, U-D-V
    CALCULUS FOREVER, RACH and ALI!
    (last line was modified from SME, which was modified from MIT)

    and I know pi this far:
    3.1415926535898 - I studied the poster in high school
    ReplyDelete
  6. Ken--that is awesome about MIT! I hope Finn goes into math, not baking. Or else I'll be fat.

    Mary--I laughed out loud at your comment! We saw Alice on Friday and it was great.

    Darci--I hope you did that cheer several times yesterday!

    Ally--Basically, the math is too elegant for there not to be a creator who designed those numbers to combine the way they do.

    Al--Thanks pal. Your pi knowledge is stunning.
    ReplyDelete
  7. My baby sis-in-law (used to) know pi to 300 digits...ummm yeah. Thought you would appreciate.
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  8. I love this! I teach 7th grade math & we have a pi day celebration (this year we did it on 3.12 since 3.14 was on a Sunday) We have the students bring pie, and have a bunch of different pi day activities & contests. Math nerds unite!! :)
    ReplyDelete

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