Pi Day - Celebration of An Indispensible Mathematical Determinant

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter . It now has various equivalent definitions and appears in many formulas in all areas of mathematics and physics.
Image from/pixabay.

 π Pi the worlds most renowned mathematical constant. Pi is wonderful. It plays into so many aspects of our lives and goes on forever and ever and ever. Every year the certain day comes that shares numerical values of Pi and on that day we celebrate Pi with every kind of Pie we can imagine,


Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter . It now has various equivalent definitions and appears in many formulas in all areas of mathematics and physics. It is approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter π since the mid-18th century, though it is spelled out as "pi". It is also called Archimedes' constant.

It can also be noted that Pi is actually an irrational number (a decimal with no end and no repeating pattern) that is most often approximated with the decimal 3.14 or the fraction 227.

Pi Day

Pi day occurs March 14, as the day is written as 3/14 in the United States. Some serious persons celebrate the day exactly at 1:59 AM (or PM!) so they can reach the first six numbers of pi.  

Pi Approximation Day

Pi Approximation Day is observed on July 22 (22/7 in the day/month format), since the fraction ​²²⁄₇ is a common approximation of π, which is accurate to two decimal places and dates from Archimedes.

Two Pi Day

Two Pi Day, also known as Tau Day for the mathematical constant Tau, is lightly observed on June 28 (6/28 in the month/day format).
Tau Day is an annual celebration of the circle constant τ=6.283185…,

History of Pi Day

Physicist Larry Shaw started Pi Day in 1988 at San Francisco's Exploratorium to celebrate the famous number and mathematics in general. There Shaw worked as a physicist, with staff and public marching around one of its circular spaces, then consuming fruit pies. The Exploratorium continues to hold Pi Day celebrations^.
 

Larry Shaw-  Image from FWD

On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution  recognizing March 14, 2009 as National Pi Day.


Interestingly the entire month of March 2014 (3/14) was observed by some as Pi Month. And in the next year 2015, March 14 was celebrated as Super Pi Day. It had special significance, as the date is written as 3/14/15 in month/day/year format. At 9:26:53, the date and time together represented the first 10 digits of π.

Pi - Invention and Importance 

The mathematical concept of Pi has been around for thousands of years, but it started to be known by the Greek letter only in the 1700s. Philologist William Jones began using the symbol in 1706, but it was popularized by mathematician Leonhard Euler.

Many mathematicians – from famous ones such as Fibonacci, Newton, Leibniz, and Gauss, to lesser or well-known mathematical minds – have toiled over Pi, calculated its digits, and applied it in numerous areas of mathematics.  Some spent the better parts of their lives calculating just a few digits. Here is a sampling of the many milestones in the life of Pi.

Early decimal approximations for pi were obtained in a number of different ways.  For example, in ancient Babylon, rope stretchers marking the locations of buildings and boundaries estimated pi to  be 258 = 3.125.  The ancient Egyptians determined the ratio to be (169)2 ≈ 3.16. The earliest calculations of Pi were largely based on measurement.

Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, was the first to use an algorithmic approach to calculate pi.  He drew a polygon inside a circle and drew a second polygon outside of the circle. Then he continuously added more and more sides of both polygons, getting closer and closer to the shape of the circle.  Having reached 96-sided polygons, he proved that.22371 < pi < 227.

From Archimedes’ time (about 250 B.C.E.) to the modern technological advances Pi saw many developments. Pi has now been calculated to 31 trillion digits.

As William L. Schaaf once said

 Probably no symbol in mathematics has evoked as much mystery, romanticism, misconception and human interest as the number pi

Some Amazing Facts about Pi

• Pi = Circumference divided by the diameter of the circle - if diameter is twisted or turned in a circuitous or spiraling manner along circumference it gives a result around 3.141592654.... times.

• The ratio Pi is same no matter how big or small the circle is.

• Pi is the most famous irrational number - a decimal that does not terminate or repeat.

• The World Record for a Computer finding the digits of Pi was made in 2013. The eight quadrillion places to the right of the decimal point!  

• If we want to print 1 billion decimal value in normal font it would stretch about 2000 Km.

• Many fractions are used as approximations of Pi

• The fraction 22/7 is accurate to 0.04025%
  

• Another fraction 355/113  is accurate to 0.00000849%

• A more accurate fraction of Pi is 104348/33215. This is accurate to 0.00000001056%

• Both π and the letter P are the sixteenth letter in the Greek and English Alphabet respectively.

• The symbol of Pi -π has been used regularly as a mathematical constant only for the past 250 years.

• Since there are 360 degrees in a circle, some mathematicians were delighted to discover that the number 360 is at the 359th digit position of Pi.

Albert Einstein - Image from nobelprize.org

• Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day 14th March 1879 in Ulm Wurttemberg, Germany.

Archimedes - Image from Britannica.com 

• Pi was first rigorously calculated by one of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient world Archimedes  of Syracuse (287- 212 B C )

• William Jones (1675 - 1749) introduced the symbol π in the year 1706 and it was later popularized by Leonhard Euler (1707 - 1783) in 1737.

• The Feynman Point is a sequence of six nines that start at the 762nd digit in the decimal sequence of pi. It was named after physicist Richard Feynman, who once stated during a lecture he would like to memorize the digits of π until that point, so he could recite them and quip .

We lost Richard Feynman on this day in 1988. Here is the fantastic Feynman point in Pi. http://t.co/N24SqyXx84 pic.twitter.com/BiRchFvOha

— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) February 15, 2014

• Hiroyuki Goto from Tokyo. He recited 42,195 decimal places from memory at NHK Broadcasting Centre, Tokyo on 18 February 1995. This set the world record at the time, which was held for more than a decade until Lu Chao beat it in 2005.   Rajveer Meena holds the record for reciting the most number of decimal places of pi. In 2015, Meena recited 70,000 decimal places blindfolded. It took him 10 hours.    

Pi appears as an important constant in many mathematical equations and it is the most recognized constant in the world.

For more facts and information about pi, visit www.piday.org.      

Observance

Pi day has been observed in various forms like eating pie, throwing pies.

 Strawberry pie 

Photo by Reuben Mcfeeters on Unsplash

Question is, why by eating a great deal of Pie!  Pies are circles, Pi describes circles, and through that we find that everything in the universe can be described with a pi(e). Other ways to celebrate this most amazing and transcendental of days (Pi is a transcendental number, look it up) is to research this number and discover all the amazing secrets it hides. Once we really get to understand the depths and complexities of it, we’ll understand why Pi day exists to celebrate a simple combination of digits.

Other-way of doing it, discussing the significance of the number π due to pun based on the words pi and pie being homophones in English and coincidental circular shape of many pies.
Here are some ways to celebrate Pi Day Top Ten Ways to Celebrate Pi Day and 25 Best Ways to Celebrate National Pi Day

 

Related Article in this Blog

How to Conquer Math Anxiety

   

The Vocabulary of Emotions