I remember in Geometry in my freshmen year of high school, we had to celebrate Pi Day by doing a project. I designed a website that discussed pi and what basic roles it can play (the website has since died since the free hosting service cuts off all the free people), and then I made a pizza pie (with a large pi symbol made of pepperonis in the center).
Posts: 1960 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
In just under 45 minutes it will be 3:14pm on the east coast of the US. I missed 1:59pm though.
Posts: 3134 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
You guys know there are two Pi days in every year right? The other one is 7/22, cause in brit notation that's 22/7 which is the fractional approximation of pie. It also happens to be my birthday O:)
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, the correct time to observe this would be at 3/14 15:92, which works out to 4:32pm.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
In math, we had a competition to see who could memorize the most digits of pi by breaktime in school. The winner would get 10 points extra credit in math. If you can get at least the first 10 numbers you're guarenteed 5 points. I got 40 something digits correct. The winner had like 110.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have the first 100 digits memorized, and I went around all day proselytizing the glories of pi. I didn't have any pie, but it happened to be my annoying friends birthday, and my non- annoying friend made her a cake, so I had pi-cake.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
see, it was actually fated that I become an engineer... curses to being born on pi day! curses I say!
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Griffin: This is what I've memorized
3.141592653589793238462643383279
Pi. When I was in 6th grade, I had a friend named Robert. He and I found a page one day that had pi on it, up to like a thousand places. Grouped five digits at a time. He memorized up to 200. I had it up to about 50. Now I just have the first 35 in my head.
3.14159265358979323846462338327950288
And the last 15 of those doesn't come clear any more unless I sing the song from that link in my head. Theoretically, I could use that site to get 191 digits, but I haven't had free time I felt like spending on it.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I hate memorization. Just gonna throw that out there, if I need Pi to some absurd number of places I just pull it up in maple
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I slept through pi time! Which is really too bad, since my university's math department serves several different types at almost 2.
Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Foxnews said that people have now calculated pi out to 1 trillion decimal places. I don't know if I believe it or not - Last time I checked, we had calculated just over 200 billion of the decimal places of it (this was done in 2000). We certainly have the technology to compute it out to 1 trillion digits, but whether or not someone has (and it's been verified?)
For those who care (and those that don't) - some relatively interesting facts about pi:
1. Pi is irrational. This means there are NO 2 natural numbers (1,2,3,...), say a and b, so that pi = a/b.
Note that you can approximate pi to any degree of accuracy that you please with fractions of natural numbers, you just can't ever get it exact.
(Showing all this is hard, but not TOO hard, especially when compared with showing....:
2. Pi is transcendental. That means there is NO polynomail equation with integer coeffecients that pi satisfies.
Polynomials with integer coeffecients are things like f(x) = x^2 - 45 x + 2 or f(x) = 238x^323321 - 829394732x^2343298 + 8234932x^2 +17.
I'm saying there isn't a single one so that when you plug in pi for x, you get 0.
(for the math wiz wannabee's, it's relatively easy to prove statement 1 if you assume statement 2 - give it a shot)
Interestingly, it is also known that e (the base of the natural logarithm) is also transcendental. It is known that e^pi is transcental. And that at least one of e + pi and e*pi are transcendental (but no one knows which, or if both are)
3. Pi may or may not be normal - everyone thinks it is, but no one has proven it. Being normal means that the digits of pi are uniformly distributed. An equivalent definition of normal is that any finite string of numbers that you can imagine appears in the decimal expansion of pi.
A paper recently came out which, if found to be true, will show that pi is normal, but so far it hasn't been refereed (checked for accuracy)
4. The digits of pi continue for ever, without ever repeating. (For those memorizing digitis - congratulations, you've now memorized 0% of it ;) )
That's all I got now. Happy Pi day!
Posts: 168 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hey Shigosei. I was going to send you a message today at 1:59, but I guess I lost your phone number! Happy Pi Day anyway!
Posts: 1592 | Registered: Jan 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Mathematician: 4. The digits of pi continue for ever, without ever repeating. (For those memorizing digitis - congratulations, you've now memorized 0% of it )
At the end of Carl Sagan's Contact (the book, natch), pi starts coming out as only repetitions of 1 and 0.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Remember the Simpsons episode where Professor Frink is trying to get a group of scientists to be quiet and so yells, "Pi is equal to twenty-two sevenths!", following it up after the shocked silence with, "Sorry I had to get rough with you ..."?
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah! That's the one where Lisa realises that bullies pick on nerds based on a pheremone that nerds produce and gets to show her findings to the ner- I mean scientist convention and they all get beat up. Good episode.
Posts: 2596 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Lisa: I love that little touch. If I recall correctly, the ones and zeroes could be printed out in a grid to form a circle.
Posts: 3546 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I like the 2008/03/14 format better. I guess it's the computer guy in my speaking, it's easier to sort files this way than if you use 14/03/2008. ...and I'm European.
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
"In just under 45 minutes it will be 3:14pm on the east coast of the US. I missed 1:59pm though."
It took me way too long of a time to figure out how this was posted in the future. I couldn't figure it out until I saw my own post in this thread.
Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem is, you can't eat pi pieces of pie. Pieces of pie are always integers, because half a piece of pie is a piece of pie. They're sort of like crumbs in that way.
You'd have to have the ISO determine an actual measure called "piece" for pies in order to be able to eat pi pieces of pie. Which could actually suck the entire earth into a wormhole.
posted
My first day on the board and it's PI day! I like to sing the first 26 digits of pi to the tune of the ABC song - or Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, if you prefer and end with "Now I know my song of PI, next I'll poke you in the eye"
Posts: 324 | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Remember the Simpsons episode where Professor Frink is trying to get a group of scientists to be quiet and so yells, "Pi is equal to twenty-two sevenths!", following it up after the shocked silence with, "Sorry I had to get rough with you ..."?