Today is Happy 3.14 Day or Pi Day, not to be confused with Pie Day in January-though you might take in a slice of the circle to celebrate. This international day of celebration, now in its 26th year, was started at the San Francisco Exploratorium by physicist Larry Shaw commemorating the mathematical constant and observed on March 14 or 3/14 – representing the first three numbers of Pi.
Fun fact: Today is also Albert Einstein’s birthday
What is the history Pi you ask? Pi is written as the Greek Letter for p or π – Archimedes was credited with the first calculation of Pi. In 1761, Johann Lambert proved that Pi was irrational and can’t be written as a ratio of integer numbers, meaning its decimal form neither ends nor becomes repetitive-basically it goes on forever. If you span out the 18 decimal places, Pi =3.141592653589793238. In 1882, Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann, a German mathematician, published that Pi is a transcendental number, meaning it is not a root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. His discovery proved that you can’t “square a circle.”
Most of us know Pi is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle, equaling 3.14159. Regardless of the circle’s size, this ratio will always equal Pi.
In 2015, Pi Day will have special significance on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. and p.m., with the date and time representing the first 10 digits of π.
How are people and students celebrating Pi Day? Some AZ schools had students bring in delicious pies and pizza to slice up, museums around the country are having educational activities and restaurants and bakeries are offering Pi Day specials.
Get your kids involved with math and check out the Arizona SciTech Festival for events focused on STEM!
Share with us what you are doing for National Pi Day!
Graphics from WikiMedia Commons
