Pi and Albert's Birthday is always celebrated with a big Pie.....
It's 14th of March, the day where the annual celebration of pi takes place. As I love maths, fancy Albert and observed the whole wide web honors it with articles, I had to write about it too. So, Congratulations!
Not familiar with Pi?
If you've been fortunate enough to go to school you've most definitely come across Pi in math class. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159, but it doesn't stop there, Pi has been calculated to over 9 trillion digits beyond its decimal point.
To get a picture; NASA just need 15 digits to get rockets to space though, and to get an atom precise measurement of the universe you just need 40 thus for equations only a few handfuls are needed.
Pi has been known for 4000 years is the most famous and essential constant we need to be able to get anywhere and create stuff here on earth, if we didn't know pi we would never be able to watch TV, drive a car, travel by airplane, go to space, go to space or do any of the things we appreciate so much and take for granted. So indeed a reason to celebrate!
It's Albert Einsteins birthday also but he is completely shadowed by the celebration of Pi, at least it's maths that is celebrated, so I guess he would find that ok. Today mathematicians all over the world will be eating pie, the Holidays famous food dish... who would have thought.
NASA though wants you to celebrate to celebrate like a rocket scientist and issued a Pi in the Sky Challenge where you will be presented with a series of math problems NASA engineers and scientists might solve by using Pi, such as how much of Earth would be covered by an eclipse, or how many days the Cassini spacecraft will need to orbit around Saturn.
Or if you are in the US, you can celebrate by going to Whole Foods to buy a large pie which they today offer to a price of $3,14. Thats kinda cool,hehe.
I also would like to serve you a brief History of Pi here it is.
By measuring circular objects, it has always turned out that a circle is a little more than 3 times its width around. In the Old Testament of the Bible (1 Kings 7:23), a circular pool is referred to as being 30 cubits around, and 10 cubits across. The mathematician Archimedes used polygons with many sides to approximate circles and determined that Pi was approximately 22/7. The symbol (Greek letter “π”) was first used in 1706 by William Jones. A ‘p’ was chosen for ‘perimeter’ of circles, and the use of π became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. In recent years, Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits past its decimal. Only 39 digits past the decimal are needed to accurately calculate the spherical volume of our entire universe, but because of Pi’s infinite & patternless nature, it’s a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.
And now, Imagine the world without pi....
So yes, definitely, lets give Pi our best wishes today.