It would have been a lot more appropriate if I had thought about this two years ago. March 14, 2016 would have been 3.14.16 - a much closer representation of the value of Pi.
Apart from the standard arithmetic symbols of + - ÷× and =, no other symbol is as well known as the 16th letter in the Greek alphabet; yet it is dreaded like the plague by many high school students who anticipate that school work just got complicated by the prospect of having to use it.
Or, an undeserved lesson in grammar. Consider Drabble's take on it:
"Pie are squared is incorrect, and it is bad grammar. It should be pie is round"
Or, an undeserved lesson in grammar. Consider Drabble's take on it:
"Pie are squared is incorrect, and it is bad grammar. It should be pie is round"
But David Blatner audaciously wrote a book the title of which made pi as deliciously enticing as pie.
Q:What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?
A: Pumpkin Pie!
Corny humor aside, Pi is definitely a popular pop and comic strip icon of all math or Greek letter symbols. Rightly or wrongly people associate some of Pi's attributes to matters unrelated to its value or application. It begins with the fascination to calculate for its value to as many decimal points as possible, mostly for curiousity. Super computers have now calculated Pi to its 22 or more trillionth decimal point. There is still no repeated pattern of the digits (unique attribute of every irrational numbers). But people see certain groupings of numbers: the first 144 digits when added total 666. And, of course, 144 is also equal to (6+6) X (6+6). Neither here nor there but some folks see certain errieness there. On the other hand, the sequence 123456789 appears exactly in that sequence, beginning at the 523,551,502nd digit. By the way, after the one millionth decimal places, someone or a few others with too much time on their hands, noted that the ten digits 0 to 9 appear evenly distributed at about 100,000 times each (1/10 each of the total million digits). One person, Hiroyuki Goto, who has more memory power in his brain than a 1990's laptop, recited the digits of Pi to 42,000 places from memory. That was in 1995, so perhaps it may already have been broken; for what purpose, we don't know, other than to top Mr. Goto's prowess.
Albert Einstein's birthday is March 14 (3.14), a mere coincidence, but why did it have to be? It is also a coincidence that pie happens to be a most beloved dessert and circular as the standard pizza that both begin with the two letters pi. We also conventionally slice them along the lines close to the diameter. Each slice, if you notice, is formed by two converging lines that are the radii (plural of radius) and a chord (partial part) of the circle. That's neither nor there too but at least it is a noble attempt at a fair distribution, if there is more than one diner.
What is amazing about Pi is that it had existed in nature since the beginning of time but it took a while for us to discover it. There is no actual record of exactly when it was but a glimmer of it apparently came about more than a thousand and a half years BC. It might seem like a long time ago but from the context of the age of the universe it is a millionth of the blink of an eye, whereas Pi was already operating as a rule maker for the circular and spherical shapes of stars, galaxies, planets and their orbits. It was there to influence the shapes of all creatures' eyes, the arrangement of sun flower petals, cross sections of tornadoes and hurricanes, the perfect configuration of wheels and cylinders, droplets of liquid, the propagation of sound waves, etc. Pi had to be discovered first before Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz independently invented calculus.
What is it about Pi that fascinates and perplexes people throughout history? Folks who loved to measure things first observed that when they measured the circumference of a circle and compared it to its diameter (not a bad relationship), the proportion remained consistent regardless of the size of the circle. Early values of the ratio were used for centuries to the satisfaction of a lot of people.Later on, that ratio of the circumference divided by the diameter was refined even more to the popular value of 3.1416, which is very adequate for all intents and purposes. It was fine for commerce and other applications.
The bottom line is this: Human discovery and understanding of Pi - no other single concept had so much influence - gave us the civilization we have and the definition of how technology developed. The invention of the wheel was history changing but the leaps and bounds we've achieved begun with our understanding of Pi. Manufacturing the different sizes of wheels, gears, ball bearings and pulleys, circumnavigation, calculating trajectories of rockets and projectiles, everything we can think of that involves circles, parts of circles, cylindrical pipes and containers, spheres and hemispherical structures, etc. were made possible by our understanding of Pi.
Pi and its never ending decimal points, non-repeating pattern, are about as close as we will get to grasping or have a feel for infinity. After all, a circle is a polygon with an infinite number of sides. "Going in circles" defines our earth without an edge or surface boundary allowing us to come back where we came from without retracing our steps but by just simply going forward. Which also says, by the way, that any straight line, no matter how long, is still part of an infinitely large circle. Let that sink in for a minute. Remember that the field of grass or meadow we see, the wide expanse of an ocean, all seemingly flat are parts of a sphere. And earth is not exactly an infinitely large body. It is even theorized that if we shine a powerful enough laser and its light goes out unimpeded, remaining coherent (not spreading), it will after an infinite amount of time come back where it begun.
That's about as nerdy as I will go but for those willing to take more mental punishment, I recommend reading about why Pi is more than just an irrational number - it is transcendental, though it has nothing to do with meditation. Or. you may want to find out why not all irrational numbers are transcendental, although all transcendental numbers are irrational but not having to do with inability to be reasonable or logical.
Let's just give a moment to celebrate Pi.
The bottom line is this: Human discovery and understanding of Pi - no other single concept had so much influence - gave us the civilization we have and the definition of how technology developed. The invention of the wheel was history changing but the leaps and bounds we've achieved begun with our understanding of Pi. Manufacturing the different sizes of wheels, gears, ball bearings and pulleys, circumnavigation, calculating trajectories of rockets and projectiles, everything we can think of that involves circles, parts of circles, cylindrical pipes and containers, spheres and hemispherical structures, etc. were made possible by our understanding of Pi.
Pi and its never ending decimal points, non-repeating pattern, are about as close as we will get to grasping or have a feel for infinity. After all, a circle is a polygon with an infinite number of sides. "Going in circles" defines our earth without an edge or surface boundary allowing us to come back where we came from without retracing our steps but by just simply going forward. Which also says, by the way, that any straight line, no matter how long, is still part of an infinitely large circle. Let that sink in for a minute. Remember that the field of grass or meadow we see, the wide expanse of an ocean, all seemingly flat are parts of a sphere. And earth is not exactly an infinitely large body. It is even theorized that if we shine a powerful enough laser and its light goes out unimpeded, remaining coherent (not spreading), it will after an infinite amount of time come back where it begun.
That's about as nerdy as I will go but for those willing to take more mental punishment, I recommend reading about why Pi is more than just an irrational number - it is transcendental, though it has nothing to do with meditation. Or. you may want to find out why not all irrational numbers are transcendental, although all transcendental numbers are irrational but not having to do with inability to be reasonable or logical.
Let's just give a moment to celebrate Pi.
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