Wednesday, March 14, 2007

International Pi Day

Well, yes, I am a geek. Thanks for asking. Seriously though, I've just been informed that today is indeed International Pi Day. For those not quite getting the reference, today is March 14, or 3.14. The Greek letter Pi is the symbol used to represent the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi is approximately 22/7, and is often written in decimal form as 3.14. The actual decimal value of Pi continues into infinity without repeating.

Apparently there are quite a few people out there obsessed with Pi. The U.S. record for Pi memorization is 12,887 digits, and is held by Marc Umile, a Medicare biller from Philadelphia. The world record for Pi memoriztion is 67,890 digits and is held by Chao Lu, a chemistry student from China. At the height of my geekdom I only knew Pi to about 10 places.

In celebration of Pi Day, here's some Pi trivia
  • Pi Day, 3/14, is also the birthday of Albert Einstein
  • On Kate Bush's 2005 album Aerial, there is a song titled 'Pi' in which she sings Pi to the 137th decimal place.
  • In 1897, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill from which it could be deduced that pi was equal to 3.2 or other incorrect values, including at one point 4. The Indiana Senate postponed the bill indefinitely, preventing it from becoming law.
  • In the movie Scarface, the character Frank Lopez wears a necklace with the pi symbol.

And now I think it's time to celebrate this fine day by having some pie. I think pumpkin sounds good.

5 comments:

BlueMule said...

Yes, my dear, you be a geek. But at least you're a morningstar wielding geek. That gives you cred most geeks would lust after.

I only know pi to two decimal places!

"That's my pie!" - Stan Gable, Alpha Beta/President of Greek Council - Revenge of the Nerds

Yomper said...

When I went to college we didn't have a Greek fraternity/sorority system. However, that didn't stop my floor from creating our own "fraternity". We called ourselves Lambda Loada Pi, and we had sweatshirts with Greek letters and our nicknames on it. It was a way to pretend that we were going to a real school. And a good excuse for drinking.

Anonymous said...

Chum's got a pucker-pi
3.14stinky poo-poo

Quartermaster said...

I love my anonymous commenters. Is it really cool or really sad that I know what you're talking about?

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm glad that you love me. The fact that you know what I'm talking about means not only that you are super cool, but I'm cool too.