MARCH 14, 2023 - PI DAY

 TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2023 - PI DAY

Yes, it is March 14th - or the third month of the year, and the fourteenth day - 3.14.

PI Day has become a bit of a celebration of math, science, and even pyrotechnics. 

First - some history

At some point, cavemen made wheels - round objects that made moving things easier.  Then the cavemen harnessed two wheels together with an axle and two of these axle assemblies together to make wagons (and eventually cars).  

So, you pick a center point, draw a line out to the edge (we’d call that a “radius”), make sure all the radiuses (“radii”) are the same - and you have a circle.    Then the early mathematicians were perplexed - the two radii became the diameter - and what was the ratio between the diameter and the distance around the circle (circumference).  

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a whole number - the circumference was more than three times the diameter and was less than four times the diameter.  So, those early mathematicians came up with fractions.  The circumference was less than 3.5 times the diameter.  It was less than three and ¼ (3.25).  As measurement got better, it was about 3.14 times the diameter - but not exactly.

Eventually, those mathematicians couldn’t exactly define the circumference.  It wasn’t an exact fraction times the diameter.

Thus PI - was born - an “irrational” number - a number that couldn’t quite be a fractional constant time the diameter.  Let’s see, it was more than 3.14 and less than 3.15.  It was a constant between 3.142 and 3.143.  To ten decimal places, it was 3.1415926535.

Unlike other fractions that terminated (like 3.25), or repeated (like 3.33), it just wasn’t exact.  

Since many of the early mathematicians (at least in western society) were Greek, they called it PI (π)

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So PI day.  

Of course, there are the fun parts of PI day.  The area of a circle is πr2  which is pronounced Pi R squared.  The pundits say “but pies are round!!”.  

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PI day is also a celebration of mathematics day.  You have counting numbers (zero and higher), you have whole numbers (positive and negative numbers), you have rational numbers, then come (gasp) irrational numbers (like PI), and imaginary numbers (like the square root of negative 1).

The farther you go in mathematics, the stranger it can be!!  (Yes, from a person with a bachelor's and master's in math).  Yes, my calculus, differential equations, trigonometry, abstract algebra, and topology backgrounds are a little dated!!

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A couple more things about PI Day.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879.  (For those of you who don’t know Einstein, he was considered one of the very smartest ever).

Pyrotechnics

Some crazed people like to shoot off rockets on Pi day (I have done this, so … I must be crazy).  You can get kits at Hobby Lobby and assemble rockets.  You need a power pack and some triggering mechanism - and BOOM - off goes your rocket!!  The friend who hosted this event also created his own fireworks (aka “pyrotechnics”).  On the closest Saturday to PI day, this friend would host a big potluck dinner, rocket shooting, and then an amazing homemade fireworks display.  

Note - if you get invited to a homemade fireworks display - GO!!!

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Math is frequently the most loved and the most hated of school subjects.  I think a lot of this comes from your math teachers.  I remember friends saying their math teachers were also coaches and were lousy teachers and they didn’t teach well, and they didn’t learn well.

I remember a story from Zig Ziglar, a motivational speaker, about one of his daughters who hated math and wasn’t good at math in high school.  But, later on, she needed to get a master’s degree in her field and she needed more math.  But this time, she LOVED math, she did well in her graduate statistics and math classes and became a math tutor!!!  

If you love learning a particular area (like math), you do well; but if you hate learning (math), you will do poorly.  

Making a parallel point, if you love learning about love and have had a loving environment, you will work toward LOVE WINS; but if you grew up in a hate-filled environment, you might have trouble saying “LOVE WINS”.

Like math, you need to practice (I do some mathematical thinking every day).  You can learn to love math, and you can learn to love LOVE!!!

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

KAREN ANNE WHITE, ©, MARCH 14, 2023