It’s that day of the year where we get a tasty excuse to celebrate math.
Yep, it’s Pi Day!
The concept of Pi day came about because some bright spark saw the correlation between the way Americans write their dates and Pi’s first three digits.
So although it’s 14.3 in Blighty, plenty of other places are celebrating 3.14.
As explained on the official Pi day website: ‘Pi Day is an annual opportunity for math enthusiasts to recite the infinite digits of Pi, talk to their friends about math, and to eat pie.’
Pi (Greek letter ‘π’) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — a constant that’s approximately 3.14159. And because it’s a constant, the value always stays the same no matter how big or small the circle is.
The value of Pi has been calculated to over 50 trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern
14 March is also the birth date of celebrated physicist Albert Einstein. In November 2019, in its General Conference, UNESCO, announced Pi Day as the International Day of Mathematics.
Early calculations of Pi were based on measurement until the Greek mathematician Archimedes became the first to use an algorithmic approach, according to PiDay.org.
Former physicist Larry Shaw, who connected March 14 with 3.14, celebrated the first Pi Day at the Exploratorium with fruit pies and tea in 1988. Shaw reportedly led Pi Day parades there every year until his passing in 2017.
March 14 also marks the death of renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who passed away in 2018.
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