Pi Day

Even More Pi Music

Dan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:29:38 +0000

Check out EducationalRap.com’s Pi Day Rap page, including quite a few Pi rap songs you can listen to. My favorite line is “If I’m buyin’ rims for a car – circumference – hey, yo, 2 Pi r…”

Also, TeachPi.org has a nice Pi music page with downloadable lyrics to several songs.

A Pizza Place named “Pi”

Dan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:14:25 +0000

This Pizza shop was spotted by Eric, creator of the pisicle, in New Orleans:

Trader Joe’s Sells Pi(e)s

Dan — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:00:45 +0000

This Pi Day promo sign was spotted outside Trader Joe’s in the Twin Cities:

How I learned to enjoy Pi

Kevin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:09:14 +0000

I first became aware of Pi in 2nd or 3rd grade, when there was a banner on our classroom wall showing the first 20 or 30 digits. It said something like “Pi ≈ 3.1415…”. I ask the teacher (though I don’t remember her name, now) what “Pi” was, and was told that it had to do with circles, and that we’d be learning about it later in the year.

When the “Circles Unit” came, we did most of the computation by hand (this was early elementary school) and approximated Pi as 3.14 (or 22/7, if we were “doing fractions”). We learned about the area formula: Pi*r^2 and the circumference formula: Pi*d. Somewhere along the line, I started memorizing the numbers off that banner. To this day, I’ve really never memorized any more than that, though I’ve tried on numerous occasions.

Later on, in Geometry (I think 7th or 8th grade), we started graphing Pi-related things on TI-92s, thus kindling my interest in TI Calculators. We learned formulas for the surface area (4pi*r^2) and volume (4/3*pi*r^3) of a sphere and probably some others. It was about this time that Dan and I started observing Pi Day and registered this domain name.

– Kevin

Legislating Math

Dan — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:30:58 +0000

On February 5, 1897, the state of Indiana almost declared pi as “5/4 to 4″ or 3.2. While it’s fairly common for governmental bodies to legislate weights and measures, this shows that the Indiana Legislature doesn’t understand the concept of irrational numbers. It’s the irrational part that makes pi so great, in the first place. Coverage of this event includes:

Another song about Pi Day

Dan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 21:45:51 +0000

Zeke Hoskin is a songwriter and retired computer programmer from Bellingham, WA. On March 14, 2008, two of Flip Breskin’s guitar students brought her a pie and explained why. Zeke wrote a song about it, download & listen to the MP3 here.

Puzzle & Calendar

Dan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:30:56 +0000

The Pi Day Challenge is a series of puzzles that are logic based. A team of logicians adapted or created these puzzles – some require research, some require mathematics, some require pure savvy.

TheoremOfTheDay.org’s 2010 Calendar is “12 Theorems by Women Mathematicians”. They also had a special theorem prepared for Pi Day 2009: Download the 2009 PDF.

Pi Embroidery Design

Dan — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:08 +0000

Urban Threads has released a mathematically marvelous embroidery design to celebrate! “Pi Equals Delicious” will be yummy on creations for math teachers and number-crunching mad scientists of all stripes to celebrate this most circular of holidays. Check it out.

How many digits of Pi do you have memorized?

Dan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:00:07 +0000

Just 3.14? Maybe ten or so? One hundred?… How many digits do you currently know, and how many do you think you can memorize?

Pi on the Violin

Dan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:50:12 +0000

“Pi Day” is a violin piece composed using the digits of Pi (to 220 decimal places). It’s been performed quite a bit, and you may even contact the composer and request sheet music through his YouTube page.