You probably find it hard to believe that I, the self-proclaimed king of holidays, have been letting a significant holiday occasion slip by unnoticed \u2014 and uncelebrated \u2014 by me. I am of course referring to Pi (\u03c0) Day. A day to celebrate the world\u2019s most famous mathematical constant.
\nMarch 14, when written as 3\/14 represents the first three digits of pi (\u03c0), the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Coincidently, or maybe not, it\u2019s also Albert Einstein\u2019s birthday. Mathematically, what is apparently so attractive to mathematicians is that the number \u2014 3 followed by a ceaseless string of random numbers after the decimal point is irrational. That means that it cannot be expressed through the division of two whole numbers \u2014 but it is also a transcendental number, which means that it isn\u2019t the root of any algebraic number. Who wouldn\u2019t get excited about something like that?<\/p>\n
The Pi Day that I just missed again wasn\u2019t just any<\/em> Pi Day. It was the most perfect Pi Day that will ever happen for any of us. For the full 24 hours of 3\/14\/15 will be the one and only Pi Day that actually contained the first five numbers of the number pi \u2014 3.1415.<\/p>\n The first official, large-scale celebration of Pi Day was organized by Larry Shaw in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Today, they have a special ceremony annually at the Exploratorium on 3\/14 at 1:59 a.m. PST \u2014 that makes it 3.14159, the first six digits of pi. On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution (HRES 224) recognizing March 14 as National Pi Day. Circles have always fascinated people. Early on, it was figured out that a circle is always a little more that 3 times its width around. In the Old Testament, a circular pool is referred to as being 30 cubits around and 10 cubits across (1 Kings 7:23.) A \u2018p\u2019 was originally chosen (before \u03c0) to indicate the \u2018perimeter\u2019 \u2014 it turns out that in the Greek alphabet, \u03c0 is the 16th letter and in the English alphabet, p is also the 16th letter; so pi must be the same in every language. I\u2019m truly embarrassed that I let a holiday like this slip by with no celebration. Rest assured that it is now on my calendar and there will be the appropriate festivities here in West Virginia on all future 3\/14s\u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You probably find it hard to believe that I, the self-proclaimed king of holidays, have been letting a significant holiday occasion slip by unnoticed \u2014 and uncelebrated \u2014 by me. I am of course referring to Pi (\u03c0) Day. A … Continue reading
\nIn 1706, William Jones, a self-taught mathematician published a work titled, A summary of Achievement in Mathematics<\/em>. That is where the symbol \u03c0 appears for the first time in scientific literature to denote the ratio of a circle\u2019s circumference to its diameter. Jones realized that the decimal 3.141592\u2026. never ends and that it cannot be expressed precisely. He proclaimed, \u201cThe exact proportion between the diameter and the circumference can never be expressed by numbers.\u201d That was why he recognized that it needed its own symbol to represent it.<\/p>\n
\nSome people believe Pi contains the answers to the universe. Pi has 6.4 billion known digits that would take approximately 133 years to recite without stopping. In 2005, Chao Lu, a graduate student in China became the Guinness record holder for reciting pi \u2014 he recited the number to 67, 980 digits in 24 hours and 4 minutes. In the Star Trek episode \u201cWolf in the Fold,\u201d Spock foiled the evil computer by commanding it to compute to the last digit the value of pi.<\/p>\n
\nSorry I missed it, but a belated Happy Pi Day and a happy belated birthday to my friend Albert, who always said, \u201ceverything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler\u2026\u201d
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n