Ahh, pi! My numerical friend and I go back a long time. I was just a lonely little seventh grader stuck in oh-so-boring pre-algebra class. I was good at math, but I didn’t love it. I would have rather had an hour of creative writing or assigned reading. Even still, there were a few ways to survive the drudgery.
One of those ways was pi (π).
Every student in my class was issued a bright blue Texas Instruments Math Explorer calculator (TI-12). It was a lovely little machine, with a bit of magic hardwired in.
The second button from the right, colored yellow with its symbol painted red, was the pi-button. One press was all it would take to fill the display with as big of a piece of pi as it could hold.
3.141592653
I’d stare at the display. Memorize the digits. Then, slowly, use the backspace button to slowly remove each digit. Once they were all gone, I’d test my memory by typing it all back out on my own.
The things we’ll do to fight off insanity, right?
It now occurs to me that I’ve been rambling on and on about pi without having properly explained why it’s so awesome.
What Is Pi?
Pi is an irrational number, meaning that it’s digits go on forever without repetition or a discernible pattern. Of course, there’s so much more to π, so here’s a neat video from Richard Bew, wherein he explains pi in 3 minutes and 14 seconds (minus a bit of an intro).
What Is Pi Day?
Given, then, that pi is most often approximated as 3.14, March 14 (3/14) is often referred to as Pi Day. (Though, I do wonder if Europeans fuss with Pi Day like Americans, being that March 14 is written as 14/3 across the pond.) This year, however, we have what I’m calling a Super Pi Day because it’s March 14, 2015 or 3.1415! We won’t have another day like this for one-hundred years, so enjoy it, fellow nerds!
Why Does Pi Seem So Mystical?
Pi is mystical, amazing, even awesome because it’s unimaginably huge, having infinite digits, while still being finitely contained between 3.0 and 3.2—”infinitely finite” sounds like something The Doctor would say. For me, pi seemed so un-mathematical. It was elegant, random, and raw in a world full of sterile sums and products. I personally like how Steven Strogatz stated it in his post on The New Yorker:
Why do mathematicians care so much about pi? Is it some kind of weird circle fixation? Hardly. The beauty of pi, in part, is that it puts infinity within reach. Even young children get this. The digits of pi never end and never show a pattern. They go on forever, seemingly at random—except that they can’t possibly be random, because they embody the order inherent in a perfect circle. This tension between order and randomness is one of the most tantalizing aspects of pi.
Not to sound too cliché, but pi seems to be one more fingerprint of the Creator, a divine contrariety (order and randomness) left behind to demonstrate to us the power and beauty with which He designed this universe. It’s a number so complex and huge that a room full of PhD’s could spend their careers studying it, and yet it’s so simple that a bored seventh-grader can spend hours memorizing the first ten digits.
Do you have any strong feelings for or against pi? (Yes, there are some pi haters.)
How will you celebrate this Super Pi Day
[Quote via Steven Strogatz/The New Yorker]
Richard says
Thanks for sharing my video, Phil! 🙂
Phil Schneider says
Thanks for making it, Richard!