Today is a very special holiday of
sorts for math enthusiasts around the world - It's Pi Day! Every year on
March 14, we celebrate pi. What a
wonderful excuse to share some fun facts about everyone’s favorite mathematical
constant!
So for those who don’t already know, what exactly is pi? Pi is an irrational number whose digits
continue to infinity – which is why we round it to its shorter version, 3.14. It
is the ratio
of a circle's circumference to its diameter and represented by the Greek
letter, π. It is a staple in geometry (shapes,
hooray!) and other mathematic disciplines.
Ready for some fun facts?
*Pi has been
studied for roughly 4,000 years by many different civilizations. In 1650 B.C., an Egyptian scribe approximated
and recorded the value for pi.
Amazingly, his estimation was only off by ~1% compared to today’s
value. Pretty impressive!
*Albert
Einstein shared his birthday with pi day!
*Although
pi is an infinite number, many individuals have tried to calculate its full
value. The most recent records show that
pi has been computed to 12.1 trillion digits!1 Imagine how long that must have taken!
How do you plan to celebrate Pi
Day?
References
1Lehnardt,
K. (2016). “50 Interesting Facts about Pi.” Fact Retriever. https://www.factretriever.com/pi-facts
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