Saturday, March 14, 2015

The Pi Day of a Lifetime

by Pa Rock
Geometrician

It's here again - Pi Day - a day for everyone to post tweets honoring their favorite high school math teacher and make jokes with the punchline "No.  Pi are round, cornbread are square!"  God, that was a knee-slap[per in the fifties!

Pi, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, is commonly expressed at 3.14, and in recent years it has been celebrated as "Pi Day" on 3/14 - or March 14th.  When the mathematical expression is carried out further by two additional digits, it becomes:  3.1415, a number suggesting that 3/14/15 could be regarded as the "Pi Day" of the century - an event that will occur just once every one hundred years.

And that date of ciphering significance is today!  But don't tell my bank - they celebrated yesterday by giving free pie to all of their customers.

For those of us who count our time since high school by decades, a refresher is in order:   Pi is a critical component in determining the area of a circle:  pi (3.14) times the radius (one half of the diameter) squared equals the area of a circle.

I liked geometry in high school and found it much easier to understand than algebra.  In fact, my classroom observations led me to theorize that there are three types of high school math students:  those who like geometry, those who like algebra, and those who like passing notes.  Geometry always made sense to me.

Being a purist, I had my pie today - and ate it, too!

Let's have another cup of coffee, 
And let's have another piece of pi(e)!

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