The Big One is Here – 3.14.15!

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Some are calling it the Pi Day of the century.  Others, more dramatically, have deemed it the only (true) Pi Day of our lives.  Whatever you call it, 3.14.15 is undeniably the biggest day in the modern history of math holidays.  Well, in our ten-fingered world, that is.

(On that side note, this whole holiday has a distinctly base-10 bias, doesn’t it?  In the 8-fingered Simpsons world, for example, Pi would be 3.1103… and we would have celebrated the Big One back on March 11, 2003.  Go figure.)

As a devoted member of the Pi Day community for more than 15 years now, I have looked forward to this beautiful, momentous occasion for an incredibly long time.  I’ll be ringing in the big moment, 9:26:53 on 3.14.15, in the Los Angeles area, where I’ll be speaking at a math conference later that afternoon.

(If anyone in L.A. has ideas for more Pi Day fun with me or with MC314, who just might also be making an appearance in the area on that day, let us know by sending over a quick note!)

Where will you be when the moment strikes?  Don’t make yourself wait another 100 years to do the holiday right!  Yes, it’s on a Saturday, which might throw a bit of a wrench into your plans to celebrate with your students or your work colleagues, but hey, the Big One landing on a weekend gives you maximum flexibility to make it a Pi Day you’ll never forget!

3.14.15 forever,

Luke

What I’ve Learned Since Last Pi Day

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Greetings after a long but not-so-quiet Pi Day “off-season”!  It’s been quite a year, and there are many new stories to tell about the people and particulars of Pi.  I hope to impart each of them to you in greater depth here at TeachPi.org soon, but just to share a taste of what’s been happening, here is what I’ve learned since last Pi Day…

  • An artist in Seattle has been assembling the digits of Pi in 9-inch squares of fabric sent to her by folks around the country and world, and will be unveiling it on Pi Day.  She’s surpassed 1,000!
  • A man in India has been working diligently for the past 26 years to prove to the world that Pi is not actually transcendental, and that the true value of Pi is not 3.1415926…, but rather 3.1464466… Hmm.  More on this friendly fellow another time.
  • A very young girl in Louisiana is poised to take the digit-memory world by storm, having already recited more than 600 digits in – get this – 1st grade!  She is in 2nd grade this year, so watch out, kid memorizers at the top of the rankings!
  • There is an obscure phenomenon known as “self-locating strings” of Pi digits, which I investigated from scratch after receiving a question from a Pi fan.  I then briefly thought I had kind of discovered the first few of these strings, but was quickly and appropriately humbled after a chat with a Harvard mathematician friend, who knows a bit more about this, and pretty much everything, than I do!
  • The 16th root of 90,000,000 is 3.1415.  Go figure!

What stories from the last year do you have to share?  As our Pi community expands, and reaches an unprecedented peak of visibility on the big 3.14.15, there will undoubtedly be countless new stories of Pi intersecting with our lives, our students, our culture, and our world.  Please, by all means, let the storytelling begin!  Please send over any stories of Pi in your life, whether on Pi Day or on any other day of the year.

Your Pi pal year-round,

Luke