Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, or approximately 3.14. Pi Day occurs on March 14 because it is written as 3/14 in the U.S. According to CNN.com, serious math geeks celebrate the day exactly at 1:59 a.m. or p.m. reflecting the first six digits of the ratio, 3.14159.
Pi Day began in 1988 at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by physicist Larry Shaw to celebrate the famous number and mathematics in general. At the Exploratorium Shaw is known as the Prince of Pi. In 2009, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution to recognize Pi Day.
The mathematical concept of pi has been around for centuries, but it started to be known by the Greek letter in the 1700s. Philologist William Jones began using the symbol in 1706, but mathematician Leonhard Euler popularized the expression.
Similar to our love for pie, pi is infinite. Its exact value cannot be calculated, and it doesn’t seem to have a pattern. We will never be able to find all the digits of pi because of its very definition as an irrational number. Babylonian civilization used the fraction 3 ⅛, the Chinese used the integer 3. 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 of pi, reaching a new record. In the second half of the twentieth century, the number of digits of pi increased from about 2000 to 500,000 on the CDC 6600, one of the first computers ever made. This record was broken again in 2017 when a Swiss scientist computed more than 22 trillion digits of pi. The calculation took over a hundred days.
The record for reciting the greatest number of decimal places of Pi was achieved by Rajveer Meena at VIT University, Vellore, India on March 21, 2015. He was able to recite 70,000 decimal places. To maintain the sanctity of the record, Rajveer wore a blindfold throughout the duration of his recall, which took an astonishing 10 hours!
In the Exploratorium science museum, a circular parade happens every year on pi day. Each person participating holds one digit in the number pi.
Interestingly, some of the most famous scientists in the world have a connection to pi day. Albert Einstein was born on March 14th, 1879. Stephen Hawking died on March
15th, 2018, at the age of 76.
In celebration of this illusive number, MarCon Pies is offering their Cutie Pies on sale two for $5.00 from 9 am until noon March 14 at 114 W. Lincoln Ave.
