Pi (π) has been known for almost 4000 years. I learned today that we owe our gratitude to Archimedes of Syracuse (287–212 BC), as being the first to introduce the calculation. Without doubt, Archimedes of Syracuse was the greatest mathematician of the ancient world.
According to the Math is Fun website, Pi is defined as “the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In other words: all the way around a circle divided by all the way across it.The symbol is π. No matter how large or small the circle, its circumference is always π times its diameter.”
There is another definition from Michael Emerson as Harold Finch, in the TV Series “Person of Interest” that brings out the humanity held within the numbers.
“Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and this is just the beginning; it keeps on going, forever, without ever repeating. Which means that contained within this string of decimals, is every single other number.
Your birthdate, combination to your locker, your social security number, it’s all in there, somewhere. And if you convert these decimals into letters, you would have every word that ever existed in every possible combination; the first syllable you spoke as a baby, the name of your latest crush, your entire life story from beginning to end, everything we ever say or do; all of the world’s infinite possibilities rest within this one simple circle.
Now what you do with that information; what it’s good for, well that would be up to you.”
An excellent reason to celebrate. Here’s a treat for you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMq9he-5HUU
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Thank you for adding music to this celebration, Frank!!! Brilliant!!
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Such fun, Rebecca. What to do with all the information? Maybe I’ll think about apple.😁
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Is is fun, John! Eureka!! How is it possible that the simple equation, Pi = C/D holds the whole universe. Thank you for celebrating Pi day with me!!
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😊
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I found a quote for you about an apple! “Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked why.” Bernard Baruch,
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There you go. No body laughs at Newton
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Happy Pi day. The life of Pi encompasses everything. This is a wonderful tribute to Pi and Señor Syracuse.
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I have often wondered how Eureka moments happen and how often they strike. I’m waiting!LOL Thank you so much for joining me in celebrating Pi!
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Happy pi day🙂
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Thank you for joining the celebration of possibilities and opportunities!
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Feeling blessed 😇
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I like it!
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Vielen Dank für Ihre Kommentare. Ich folge gerne deinem Instagram-Account. Ich wünsche Ihnen einen schönen Tag.
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My sons celebrate Pi day at their school and both are fascinated by this sort of information and formula. Personally, while I appreciate maths and its benefits, and am quite good at it, I was never sufficiently interested to explore beyond the usages to the formulae I was provided with at school. I didn’t go straight to university from school for various reasons so when I started my degree the maths syllabus had been changed (mine was the last year of the old syllabus). I had to catch up the entire new syllabus in 6 weeks at the beginning of the year before I started my stats course.
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WOW! That was an amazing feat, Robbie. I confess being afraid of taking a stats course after hearing from others that it was difficult. And it was! But what an amazing experience – it changed the way I negotiated decision making and research projects. Statistics provide an excellent structure to understand a subject much more deeply, eliminating bias. While I am not an expert by any means, I appreciate the excellent work being accomplished by others in the field of medicine, business, creative endeavours, etc using statistical methodologies.
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Wow! I love the quote from ‘Person of Interest’. I loved the show too before I lost the thread and it seemed to become ever more convoluted. But I’ll remember ‘Harold’s’ words. Thank you.
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It did become convoluted – the perfect word to describe the turning point in this series. I found the video snippet of Pi: https://youtu.be/a6bT_DVwo7M. Harold had a way of saying the words, didn’t he?
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Faszinierende Überlegungen! Vielen Dank…
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Vielen Dank für das Feiern des Pi Day mit mir und für Ihre Kommentare. Alles Gute für Sie und Ihre wundervolle Familie.
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I’ve never given any thought to the infinite possibilities of pi. Hmmmm . . .
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Forever is a very long time….
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And now it’s the Ides of March. 🙂
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I was thinking the same thing, Jennifer. Alas, Caesar should never have crossed the Rubicon. I love these lines – dramatic and fraught with danger……
Caesar:
Who is it in the press that calls on me?
I hear a tongue shriller than all the music
Cry “Caesar!” Speak, Caesar is turn’d to hear.
Soothsayer:
Beware the ides of March.
Caesar:
What man is that?
Brutus:
A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.
Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2
And then Et tu, Brutus. Shakespeare knew how to keep an audience entranced. I try to imagine him as a modern day blogger!!! What fun that would be to follow him.
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Paul would definitely follow him. He loves Shakespeare. I, on the other hand, read him only when I had to. I know he was brilliant, but to each his own. C’est la vie.
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As a retired math teacher, I enjoyed your post on the irrational number pi. The human aspects hidden in the nonrepeating decimal were new to me. Thank you for sharing!
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Thank you for joining me in celebrating Pi, Peter. I was in awe of my math teachers. They were able to see numbers as a language that I simply could not understand until much later. Galileo Galilei had the right idea: “If I were again beginning my studies, I would follow the advice of Plato and start with mathematics.”
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So many students say that math is boring, because in most cases their teachers were boring. Thank you so much for your lovely comment!
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This is fascinating Rebecca. Certainly is food for thought ( no pun intended) ❤️
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Shame we don’t also celebrate e-Day (after my other favourite transcental number – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_(mathematical_constant)) 7th February would be it’s day, I guess…
✨🌻🌿🙏🕉🤍♾🕊☯🙏🌿🌻✨
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I agree, Graham – e-day. February 7th would be the perfect day as the first few digits are: 2.7182818284590452353602874713527 and so on….. Euler’s number e is one of the most important numbers in mathematics and one that is used often. Thank goodness for calculators – the equation is complex!!! (1 + 1/100000)100000.
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I always liked the function e^x as it was so easy to differentiate 😉
Also, the power-series expansion has a certain beauty…
🙏✨
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It does indeed!
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Beautiful celebration! Happy Pi Day, my friend. And here’s a lovely song by Kate Bush: “Pi”, I think you’ll enjoy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dKgjxgai4 xoxoxoxoxo
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Happy Pi day, Marina. You have the best music to add to our celebration. Kate Bush is amazing.
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Many hugs your way! xoxo
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Just think of it, Rebecca. Pi just waiting to be discovered from creation forward. I do remember the infinity aspect and also A=πr squared which is also quite marvelous. The area of anything circular in the universe can be determined by that bit of geometry, one of the few things I remember from class. The metaphysical aspects of geometry thrilled me much more than the practical stuff. 🙂
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“Just waiting to be discovered….”. Oh, Mary Jo, how many more things are waiting patiently for our arrival. In a recent conversation with someone who had just completed a masters that involved mathematics, I asked if he would pursue further studies in this area. It is a big decision he said, because the next step was not just to understand the math, but to create new thoughts on math. Think of the Nash equilibrium, named after the mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. and written about in “A Beautiful Mind” by Sylvia Nasar. Math and geometry are all around us, and yet I see only a few steps into this area of study. Sending hugs!
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Einstein had to develop his own math to suit his ideas! Hugs!
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Einstein had great ideas! I love his quote: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” a reminder that difficulties have their uses!
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Found this so interesting. Learned something new. I did not realize there was a Pi day.
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Maths is fun I enjoyed your post :). My oldest brother took a Masters in Mathematics at Warwick and went to the next level with an actuarial fellowship if I hadn’t been more interested in the creative arts I would have taken a Maths or Chemistry degree.
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I understand that Maths and creative endeavour are closely linked. We have so many paths from which to choose. I am glad that you decided that music and the creative arts would be your life, Charlotte. We have all benefited from your chosen path.
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Until this moment, Rebecca, I had not realized who was the greatest mathematician of the ancient world. I recall learning about Pi in elementary school and I had a wonderful Math (Arithmetic) teacher at the time. The ‘other’ definition caused my head to spin in a good way. I had never thought about Pi this way. My initial thought……I greatly appreciate the concept of “infinite possibilities.” A fun and fascinating post, Rebecca!
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Thank you, Erica for adding to this conversation. The concept of “infinite possibilities” is something that I have considered over the years. We have limited time – our experience is finite and moving forward in a steady and predictable timeline. And yet, we have the understanding of the infinite and grasp the concepts of time travel and forever more…. Perhaps that is why we create because within creativity there is a possibility of immortality.
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Thought provoking, Rebecca….creativity and immortality…
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That’s so interesting! I was terrible at math, but I actually understood this! Lol. I hope you have a happy PI day, Rebecca. 🙂
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Who knew how many stories were held in an equation?
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OH, now this is just simply fascinating!
Thank you for the history, and the words of Michael Emerson.
Rebecca, you always dig up the best info.
Yet, as time has passed, I grow more interested in “pie”, than Pi.
I thawed out one of my homemade pies today. It’s apricot.
I spend a lot of time baking pies.
Can’t bake a cake, torte, merengue, bread, Pi or many other exquisite delights.
I can, however, bake pies.
Sending big Pi Pie hugs out to the west coast!
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Pies using the sugar of fruits, rather than adding lots of extra sugar, are so delicious. Math and numbers are embedded in our daily experience. For example, telephone numbers. Did you know that in mathematics, “the telephone numbers (aka involution numbers) are a sequence of integers that count the ways n telephone lines can be connected to each other, where each line can be connected to at most one other line.” I did NOT know this. And this article goes on to tell me that these numbers were studied in 1800. I did NOT know this either, But here is what I know – you used many apricots in you homemade pie. And I would love to drop by your home right now for tea and pie. Sending hugs!!!
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I am a little late to celebrate that day, but I wish you a wonderful V.I.Pi day! Thank you for these explanations, i am going to explore the site ‘Math is fun’ now. 🙂
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You are never too late to celebrate Pi! I’m delighted that we connected over the blogger miles, Firenz!
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Interesting! I was born on the Ides of March, one day after Pi Day, and many people confuse the two. ;-0
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Oh how interesting! Thank you for joining the conversation and for your comments. Very much appreciated.
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Great to be here! 🙏
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Thanks for remembering & sharing pi day with us.
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I am so pleased you joined the party!
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Amazing blog and keep rocking.
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