Another Pi Day

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In the late 1980s, Larry Shaw, a staff physicist, tinkerer and media specialist at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, came up with what may be the world’s nerdiest holiday: Pi Day. Now celebrated globally each March 14, Pi Day salutes the popular mathematical constant pi, an endless decimal representation used in the measurement of a circle whose first three digits are 3.14.



What makes pi so intriguing? Divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter and the answer is always pi, no matter the size of the circle. Oh, and to sweeten up the holiday a little more, March 14 is also the birthday of Albert Einstein.



Competing for bragging rights on who can recite the most digits is a popular Pi Day activity in many schools. How many digits of pi can you recite from memory? Well, it is an infinite pursuit. The first million digits can be found online at piday.org, and the first 3 million are part of the Exploratorium’s ongoing “Pi Has Your Number” exhibition.





Or head to the Exploratroium: The all-day event will feature math-inspired activities and presentations. “Why Pi?” Explore questions about pi with museum educators Ron Hipschman and Lori Lambertson. Learn how to calculate pi with hands-on activities and demonstrations. Carry a pi digit and join in the museum’s annual “Pi Procession.” Beginning at 1:59 p.m. attendees parade around the museum toward its “pi shrine,” circumnavigating it 3.14 times while singing happy birthday to Albert Einstein. A free slice of pie from and a live music performance by San Francisco’s Mission Delirium brass band follows.





I can go as far as 3.14.15926535. Beyond that, I call it a square of rectangle!

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