March 14, 2008
HMMMM, PIE:
3.14 and the rest: It's Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical ratio that man has been trying to unlock for millennia. But why are we driven to find the answers behind it? (David Blatner, 3/14/08, BBC Magazine)
As we're all taught at school, pi represents the number you get when you divide the distance around a circle (its circumference) by the distance across (the diameter).With just a string and a ruler you can quickly measure that pi must be just over three-and-an-eighth (3.125). With more precise measurements, you may be able to narrow it down to 3.14.
However, if you ask a typical maths nerd, you'll get an earful of pi - 3.14159265 and so on. A surprising number of students have memorised 50 or even 100 digits after the decimal point.
The rough ratio of pi 3.14 gives us the date for Pi Day. March 14, or 3/14 in American dating style, makes sense for a celebration of this famous constant.
A perfect excuse to watch Darren Aronofsky's great Pi.
PC gaming ethusiasts who overclock their rigs know that calculating π to millions of digits is one of the better torture tests for CPU reliablity (SuperPi).
Posted by: Gideon7 at March 14, 2008 5:57 PM