3.141 592 653 589 793 238 462 643 383 279 502 884 197 169 399 375 105 820 974 944 592 307 816 406 286….
We’re celebrating PI DAY on March 12th!
1:00 to 3:00 PM
Seamans Center Student Commons
FREE APPLE PIE BITES!
(while supplies last!)
Pi Day is actually celebrated on March 14, typically around 3:14 am or pm.
But since that is the beginning of Spring Break – we are celebrating early!
We will have FREE apple pie bites in the Seamans Center Student Commons! But only while supplies last! And, if you’ve been here in previous years, you’ll know they go fast! So, stop by and grab a bite – got a Pi Day shirt – wear it!! We’d love to take your picture!
Beginning geometry students might remember finding the area of a circle – pi x radius squared…. But, what is Pi (π) and why does it rate its very own day?
Pi is one of the most famous and mysterious of numbers. Defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it’s diameter, Pi seems simple. However, it is an irrational number. An irrational number cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction and the decimal representation therefore never ends, nor does it ever settle into a permanent repeating pattern. Scientists have calculated billions of digits of Pi, starting with 3.14159265358979323…. with no end in sight. It could be calculated to infinity and there would be absolutely no way to know which number would come next.
Pi is not only irrational, it is also transcendental! A transcendental number is a number that is not a root of any algebraic equation having integral coefficients, as π or e. All transcendental numbers are irrational, but not all irrational numbers are transcendental. . .
Pi is used all around us every day – Christian Constanda, the University of Tulsa’s C.S. Oliphant professor of mathematical sciences, says, “Look at a football: when you compute the volume, then Pi gets involved in the formula.” Constanda also said, “If you drive through a puddle, creating a wave with the car, that involves Pi. If you see a tornado, that definitely involves Pi.”
Want to see what 100,00 digits of Pi look like? Go here.
Think you’d like to see how many digits of pi you can learn? Check out this song and sing along!
Some Pi Day Fun Facts:
- In the Star Trek© television episode, Wolf in the Fold, Spock defeats an evil enemy in the Enterprise’s computer system. How? He ordered it to “compute to the last digit the value of pi.” Which we know can not be computed!
- The number 360 occupies the 360th position in the digits of Pi.
- Divide the length of a river – with all the bends and curves – by the length of the river would be “as the crow flies,” the average ration will be approximately Pi. Watch this youtube video for an explanation!
- In 2008 a crop circle with Pi embedded in it appeared near Barbury Castle in Wiltshire, England.
Free Apple Pie Bites! It would be irrational to miss free pie bites! So, be here, or be square!
Seamans Center Student Commons
1:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Resources:
Adrian, Y. E. O.. The pleasures of pi,e and other interesting numbers. 2006. Singapore : World Scientific. Engineering Library QA95 .A2 2006
Posamentier, Alfred S. 2004. [Pi] : a biography of the world’s most mysterious number. Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books. Engineering Library QA484 .P67 2004
Maths has never looked so appealing! Oct. 3, 2013. dailymail.com
The Pi Song. Originally sung by Hard ‘N Phirm. Sept. 17, 2006. youtube.com
Mead, Wendy. March 13, 2015. Fascinating Facts About Pi Day & Birthday Boy Albert Einstein. A&E Television Network, LLC. Bio.
Rouse, Margaret. Definition : Transcendental Number. TechTarget. WhatIs.com
West, Marc. July 1, 2008. Pi appears in a crop circle. +plus magazine .
Walton, Rod. March 14, 2014. Pi common in everyday life, not just dessert. Tulsa World .
Swanson, Ana. March 14, 2015. 10 stunning images show the beauty hidden in pi. The Washington Post .
Martin Krzywinski Science Art. 1999-2018. Martin Krzywinski.
Other Resources:
Stewart, Ian. 2013. Visions of infinity : the great mathematical problems. New York, NY : Basic Books. Engineering Library QA93 .S75 2013
Stewart, Ian. 2015. Professor Stewart’s incredible numbers. New York : NY : Basic Books. Engineering Library QA241 .S8123 2015
Happy Pi Day (3.14) Domino Spiral. March 13, 2011. youtube.com