Wednesday, March 14, 2007

happy pi day

(I have previously posted about some of these links, however, now that I am actually a "real" math teacher, I think it is important to do a proper pi day post.)

Today, March 14, or 3.14, many schools and other mathematically-inclined people are celebrating pi day.

Pi is a mathematical value whose dates history back to 1900 BC!
Pi, Greek letter (pi), is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is approximately 22/7 and is usually calculated to 3 digits, 3.14. With the use of computers, Pi has been caculated to over 51 billion decimal places. Pi is an irrational number meaning it will continue infinitely without repeating. - piday.org
In honor of the event, you might want to learn the pi song. If singing it is not enough, you can watch the video (a rather bizarre parody of Zoom).

Or, learn "How to Memorize Pi." Even better, use the on-line Pi Trainer. (The current world record is 100,000 decimal places, set on October 3, 2006 by Akira Haraguchi - it took him 16 hours to recite!)

Or just gaze at the first million digits.... Also, everyone's birthday is allegedly somewhere in pi's repeating digits... want to find yours?

One researcher even lets you set pi to music?! Even writers cannot resist the temptation of this irrational number. Read Cadaeic Cadenza and learn how this story is pi-related.

Finally, you could check out this pi merchandise.

Imagine the party on March 14, 2015!

ADDED: Read about the Eminem parody "Lose Yourself" recorded by "Pi Diddy", a 7th grade math teacher for students in Louisville, KY. As you might imagine, someone made a video. Pretty clever....

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