Pi would be nowhere without people.  From those who worked a lifetime to compute it to those who spend a few hours trying to memorize it, the history of pi is just a string of stories about pi lovers themselves.

In this section, we offer three kinds of tributes to these folks: 
             1)  Memorable quotations from teachers and students around the country
             2)  Up-to-date rankings of student-memorizers, and school-wide Pi Day feats
             3)  A brief index of the people who appear in pi's history  (coming soon)

Just to get you started, we present our list of favorite quotations both here and on the Quotes page.

    Thoughts on Pi Day from Teachers & Kids...

If you love celebrating Pi Day, or memorizing pi's digits, you can rest assured that you're not alone.  What follows are some statements made by teachers and students who have seen the excitement of a good Pi Day, first-hand.  Many of these quotations come from stories in local newspapers in recent years.

Have your own thoughts on the holiday and its educational or entertainment value?  Write us and we'll include your words here, too.

    from the teachers...

"Let's face it, the day is already so nerdy. But the kids love it."
»»»» Patty Cincotta, elementary school math specialist

"We wanted to do more than just tell them about it. This allows them to actually become a part of pi."
»»»» Beth Stone, 6th grade teacher

"They're hitting on many math concepts right now. They're doing six or seven right now without seeing that they're doing it."
»»»» Bill Bassett, middle school teacher, on his class's performance of the Buffon's Needle experiment

"Pi Day is a perfect day to celebrate mathematics. It gave the students the opportunity to have fun while investigating mathematical concepts and be a little goofy."
»»»» Eric Willis, 7th grade teacher

"Having them find the diameter and radius before they ate the snacks gave them the motivation to practice the formulas. And in the end, they had a blast learning geometry."
»»»» Beth Stone, 6th grade teacher

"It's like religion. It's got a lot of mysteries to it, but it's right there in our midst."
»»»» Suz Antink, high school teacher

"I find the Pi Day projects to be a nice way for the students to tie creativity into our math curriculum."
»»»» Stephanie Zub, high school teacher

"Planning Pi Day took initiative, creativity and people willing to bypass routines. Thank you, Dallas administrators, teachers and students, for showing us and other districts how to have the strength to play--and learn--together."
»»»» Editorial, Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, March 18, 2003

    from the students...

"This is more fun than doing a math worksheet."
»»»» Matt Hove, 4th grade

"I think it's fun. It's fun to see the teachers get so into it."
»»»» Caitlin Ciminio, 12th grade

"It's like having a Math Day. It's a way to celebrate math in a day."
»»»» Tamara Broderick, college student

"I don't look too bad, considering I've been dead for 50 years."
»»»» Nick Shaver, 12th grade, on spending March 14th in an Albert Einstein costume

"I know it doesn't look that good, but I tried really hard. I cooked it myself."
»»»» Andrew Stoneburg, 12th grade, on his giant Pi Day sugar cookie

"If you think about it, pi never ends. There's an infinite space between 3 and 4. It never ends, and that's weird."
»»»» Rebecca Neet, 8th grade

    and on the topic of memorizing the digits...

"Two hundred digits is just 20 phone numbers. So I thought of it like that."
»»»» Joe Lowney, 11th grade, on dialing in the first 200 digits

"It's just a fun party trick. For the right kind of parties, of course."
»»»» Jordan Amadio, college student, on knowing 200 digits

"It's not like I'm in love with pi or something. I feel like I can do it. It's something really big."
»»»» Dustin Foster, 11th grade, on learning 270 digits

"I heard a 7th-grader should be able to memorize up to the 90th digit, so I'm almost there. It took me two weeks to get the first 86, though."
»»»» Jenny Lynnaugh, 7th grade

"Going a couple hundred will improve your memory and stuff, but going 40,000 seems to be beating a dead cow."
»»»» James Gleixner, 12th grade, who knows 206 digits, on the then-world record holder