The Pi Day of the Century

[kcjenkins]

Throwback Thursday | The Pi Day of the Century
By Katherine Schulten

 

 

What will you be doing on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53?

 

If you’re a math enthusiast, maybe you’ll be celebrating the once-a-century day when the calendar and the clock align to represent the first 10 digits of pi (3.141592653).

 

Though we don’t think anyone in 1915 was baking pies, writing pi-ku or rapping about the number, as some do these days, no March 14 until now has been more numerically notable:

 

As you remember from middle school geometry, pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and is always the same, no matter what circle you use to compute it. It is an irrational number that never repeats, with an infinite number of decimal places — though in 2013 a researcher took it to eight quadrillion places right of the decimal.

 

This year, the “Pi Day of the Century” will be marked in all kinds of creative ways. At the San Francisco Exploratorium, where the official celebration first began, you can participate in a pi procession and pizza pie dough tossing.

 

If you’re an applicant to the M.I.T. class of 2019, you’ll find out at exactly 9:26 whether or not you were admitted:

If you live near Princeton, N.J, you might attend their annual Pi Day festivities, which also celebrate the March 14 birthday of the longtime Princeton resident Albert Einstein. There will be pie-throwing and -eating contests, as well as an Einstein look-alike competition.

 

And, of course, you can always buy a commemorative Pi Day 2015 T-shirt.

 

Here are a few more ideas, from The Times and around the Web.

Learning About Pi, and Pi Day, History

 

The San Francisco Exploratorium provides a quick overview of 4,000 years of the history of the number.

In 1988 a physicist there, Larry Shaw, founded March 14 as Pi Day. And in 2009 the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting the designation.

Having Fun With the Math of Pi

Where would we be without Pi? What are some of its real-world applications? Try to answer these questions after doing some of the following exercises:

In our 2008 lesson plan Pi Anyone? we suggest three different ways of calculating and estimating pi.

The Exploratorium has a number of hands-on ideas for learning about pi, including cutting, wearing, searching, tossing and “seeing” the number.

WikiHow makes this suggestion:

Convert things into pi. This step is necessary for two reasons: first, to utterly confuse people who have no idea what you’re talking about, and second, to have fun seeing how many things can be referenced with pi. This will help you reach an even higher appreciation for the amazing number that is pi. Consider two approaches:

Use pi to tell the time. Convert naturally circular things into radians, like the hours on the clock. Instead of it being 3 o’clock, now it’s 1/2 pi o’clock. Or, instead of it being 3 o’clock, convert the inclination of the sun into radians and describe that as the time.

Simply use 3.14 as a unit of measure. Instead of being 31 years old, you are 9pi years old. With this same approach, you can find out your next pi birthday (don’t forget to celebrate it when it comes!).
And the Times’s Numberplay blog has a pi machine puzzle based on a new, original and “remarkably simple” method of calculating pi that requires just two balls and a wall.

Finally, PiDay.org has a list of ways teachers have celebrated Pi Day in the classroom.

[Yardley CPA]

Great post, KC!  For those interested here is the Princeton University Pi Day Facebook page.  I live about 15 miles from Princeton.  

 

https://www.facebook.com/PrincetonPiDay?fref=nf

Edited March 14, 2015 by Yardley CPA

[JohnH]

I decided to merge the throught on pi day with the thread on Form 8283 and the rounding discussion. If I prepare any returns today with non-cash contributions over $500, I'm going to divide the client-furnished FMV by 3.141592653, and the truncated result is the number I'm entering on the 8283. Thaty will probably be a more accurate figure than what the client thinks their junk is worth.

[RitaB]

And I will give pie to anyone with Form 8283 who can actually itemize. Which is also one in 100.

[JohnH]

I was hoping my favorite math teacher would jump in here, and she did. She is the one who taught me to memorize all the digits of pi. That was a breeze.

But I'm still working on getting them in the right order.

Edited March 14, 2015 by JohnH

[Catherine]

We toasted "pi time" with tea this morning, and plan to have pie for dessert tonight.  We also are getting a kick out of MIT's using that minute to release notice of new student acceptances.  

 

I really like the idea of conflating pi day and 8283 guesstimates.

[RitaB]

[rfassett]

I did a return last week that I had quoted a low price on because the person is the 94 year old mother of one of my very,very nice clients.  Well, when I finished the return, I realized there was an opportunity here.  So I billed her $50 and one pie.  The next day she sent her son-in-law in with an apple pie made with snow apples.  Oh wait............we are talking about the other kind of pi.  Never mind!

[RitaB]

The next day she sent her son-in-law in with an apple pie made with snow apples.  Oh wait............we are talking about the other kind of pi.  Never mind!

It is never inappropriate to talk about pie.

[Margaret CPA in OH]

I have some really nice elderly clients with very low income who refuse to not pay me.  We have arrived at a deal - $25 plus a dozen home made chocolate chip cookies.  The latter are worth so much more than they can imagine.

[rfassett]

One of my restaurant clients for whom we do EVERYTHING picks up his payroll every two weeks.  With no rhyme or reason, every now and again he will come in carrying one of his pizzas.  And he always seems to know the exact right time to do that.  Nothing like food to change the tone of the day.

 

I don't know why i did not think about the cookie angle before  Because if there is one thing I like more than pie, it is a good cookie.  In fact, the girl scouts were on the side of the road today selling cookies and I almost ran them over because I saw them too late and got all excited and started my turn too late.  I never pass up a girl scout selling cookies.  So I bought a case of the do-se-do things.  Should last me a little while.  Of course, that is in addition to the five cases (mostly thin mints) that we bought last week.  But getting my clients to make me cookies - I have got to develop a plan for that.  I send out a weekly email to my clients.  Next week I am going to put in a blurb about how much I like cookies and how stressed I am right now and see if anybody is listening.  It is worth a shot.  And I have never been above begging.

[kcjenkins]

II

I really admire whoever baked this one.

[joanmcq]

I want pie really bad. But I am being good and just ate a bunch of those cutie mandarins instead.

[JohnH]

Wonder what mandarin pie would taste like?

[joanmcq]

Probably very good. And now I'm almost out of mandarins, AND STILL WANT PIE!!!

Dammit. At least the guy with the NY deferred comp & options found tax returns, a calendar of days worked where for 2006, plus some EOY stubs from 2007. Gotta love someone that keeps records! I'll extrapolate for 2005.

But pie, oh pie, would make everything better.....