It’s Pi Day…
Yesterday. Well. Yesterday was the Thirteenth. I was born on the thirteenth of the first month, so I’m sort of enamored with that date. Some worry about it when it is combined with a Friday, but I’ve had some great birthday celebrations on Friday the 13th…
Today. Well. It is a once a year date that we get to celebrate Pi… You know, one of those magical math numbers you memorized in school and later in life you are not sure what it means. Yeah. That day.
“Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.” Read more here from PiDay.org
Did you notice? It represents a constant. A true circle circumference is 3.14 times longer around than the diameter of the inside of the circle. It’s represented by the Greek symbol π which means circumference (perimetros). The matching formula looks like this: π = C/d
I think I learned this in Geometry class back in 10th grade…but in all my adult life I’m not sure I’ve ever had to use it in real life, though it’s played a part in everything thing of my life. Every circle we use follows this constant.
Though I don’t pretend to be a math nut with all the answers, I do find it interesting that the digits to the right of the decimal point have no discernible pattern and no known ending. It takes super math skills, or a supercomputer, to calculate the right side. I have a super brain, but this is outside of my skill set!
There are some who know the Pi ratio out to several thousand decimal points. Daniel Tammet. He is an Autistic Savant and sees life much differently than you and I… If you want to see how to check out life differently, you owe it to yourself to check him out.
Back to Pi for a moment. Back in 2015, people ate real pie at 3/14/15, exactly 9:26:53 am and pm… Why? Extend basic Pi out a few decimal points and you will see it’s 3.141592653. It’s a once in a lifetime celebration as it only shows up every hundred years.
On this Pi day, 3/14/18, we remember Stephen W. Hawking who passed away today after a remarkable life showing that even in adversity (a form of ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease) you can keep persevering down the path of life. His mind was sharp, even when the body was wasted. I picked up his book, Brief History of Time back in 1988. It was my first “science” book written for the common person and I’ve read it several times. He was told that to use any formula would keep the audience small, but he chose to use a single formula we all know. The formula? Einstein’s theory of relativity. E=mc2… We’ve all used this formula but we never understood it for daily life. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. How does this apply to the price of tea in China? It doesn’t! But it’s a popular formula most everybody knows!
There are folks we look up to that speak a wholly different language than we do ourselves. Or several of them. Science. Technology. Engineering. Math. These languages are the things we learn in school and as we grow we are either drawn to them or repulsed. Something like a magnet force. Our schooling and our natural ability either support these languages, or they repel us to other careers. I know that my high school testing told me to never have anything to do with computers because of poor math skills, so I disproved them by entering into IT and having a successful 33-year career programming in over 30 languages.
Who will be our next Hawking? Einstein? Who will find the next formula like Pi? Are they pushing through their learning path right now? Will I ever have another name or career to follow and ponder? Well. There are a few names starting to plant their flag on their trip to the summit. I’m praying for them to make great strides and just remember to publish their work for the rest of us to follow.