It’s March 14 everyone, or 3.14, which makes it International Pi Day! It has actually been recognized by the House of Representatives as a national holiday ever since 2009.
Wait, pi? Like, SOCATOA, Pythagorean Theorem, y=mx+b and PEMDAS? You’re head is probably spinning right now remembering high school math, but today is a pretty fun holiday that you can enjoy even if you’re not a mathematician.
We also have some pretty cool facts about pi:
Interestingly, Pi Day also happens to land on Albert Einstein’s birthday.
The Greek letter π is used in order to represent pi and which is known as a vital numerical constant when it comes to mathematics. Another thing that makes pi so special is it’s an irrational number. Irrational numbers have digits that never terminate or repeat.
The number pi, or 3.14159… has been a important part of developing modern life. According to The Huffington Post, pi was even used in ancient civilizations like Babylon and Egypt to figure out the flooding of the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile rivers. Ancient civilizations also used pi for astronomy and the pyramids.
Greek mathematician Archimedes was the first to calculate it in ancient times which is why sometimes pi is referred to as Archimedes’ Constant.
The holiday is relatively new as it was created in 1989 by physicist Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Part of the day’s celebration included marching around the building followed by eating fruit pies. 23 years later these festivities still continue.
Fans of pi love to see how many decimal places they can calculate for pi, the world record goes to Japanese systems engineer Shigeru Kondo for calculating pi out to ten trillion decimal digits.
Happy Pi Day everyone, what are you going to do to celebrate?
