Happy Pi Day

Today is 3.14 which is the first 3 digits of Pi, and is also known as Pi day (July 22, November 10, and December 21 also enjoy enjoy this honor - anyone know why?). Of course we all know that pi represents the number you get when you divide the distance around a circle by the distance across. Pi expresses the simple truth that some things we simply can not know, but can only get close to knowing. pi is a fundamental truth that shows up everywhere, even in things that have nothing to do with circles such as economic statistics and the measurements of the Great Pyramid at Giza.

remember, pi is an irrational number, so make sure you do something irrational today, enjoy a slice of pi(e), and reflect on the mystery that is pi.

Here are a few trivial facts about Pi:

• Albert Einstein was borh on Pi Da. Coincidence?
• Some Say that Archimedes was murdered while trying to stop a roman solder from ruining his work, shouting "Do not touch my circles".
• German scientist Ludolf van Ceulen spent years of his life to calculate only 35 accurate digits.
• William Shanks also spent years to calculate 70 digits, however only 527 were accurate. All of his calculations after that were wrong. How many years do you think he spent calculationg incorrect numbers?
• A Japanese computer scientist calculated 1.24 trillion digits of pi in 2002.
• Carl Sagan surmised that pi contained hidden messages from our creators. Granted with an infinit number of digits, you could probably make pi say anything you wanted it to.
• If you count the letters of the words in the following poem, you can get pi to the first 20 decimal places: "Sir, I send a rhyme excelling; In sacred truth and rigid spelling; Numerical sprites elucidate; For me the lexicon's full weight"