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Happy Pi Day
Jonathan writes "Today, the 14th of March, is Pi Day 2008. Pi Day is internationally celebrated in honor of the mathematical constant "Pi," who's actual value will — now and forever — remain unknown. NeoSmart Technologies has a run-down on the history of Pi, Pi Day, and the significance of Pi and other such "magical numbers" to science and technology. 'Pi isn't just a number that you can use to calculate circle-related mathematics, it's a symbol of something by far greater. Pi is one of many "magic" numbers that are found everywhere — if you know where to look. These magic numbers can't be explained, they just are. And if you use them right, they make it a lot easier to do a lot of really complicated things... In a way, they're a testimony to technology and computers (or vice-versa, depending on how you look at it).'"
Happy pi day :) :)
... No cake for you!
To post this story at 1:59pm, or 12 hours earlier depending upon which clock you prefer.
Surely 22/7 would be pi day.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
it's the next most irrational number, and is almost as hard to figure out
If people can get past, can they get future? Best way to confuse a stoner
Bask in its glory!
My work here is dung.
I would not say that it has an unknown value, the value is known as the ratio of a circle's diameter and circumference. Just because our system of representing numbers is flawed in that it cannot accurately define numeric sequences that approach infinity doesn't mean it is unknown... That is like saying 1/3 is unknown just because you can't print enough 3's after the decimal place to be accurate.
Silly boys.
-ellie
March 14, 2015 is going to be awesome. I think we should all coordinate our time off and have city-wide festivals (feastivals!) celebrating pi while eating ungodly amounts of it.
Wow, It's Steak, bj AND Pi day? This couldn't get any better!
For the un-initiated:
Feb 14 is Valentines day.
Mar 14 is Steak and bj day. (men need a holiday too, One that we actually want.)
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
she had to bake a sweet potato pie Wednesday night. I hope there's some left.
The Pi is a lie.
Let's see, pi radians is 180 degrees, or halfway around the circle. On the clock that's at xx:xx:30, xx:30:00, 06:00:00 and 18:00:00 - or 12:00:00 if you have a 24-hour clock, and on the calendar it's mid-week, mid-month, mid-year, mid-decade, mid-century, mid-millennium, and mid-whatever cyclical unit of time you choose to measure.
So, look at your watch and the next time it hits 30 seconds after the top of the minute, wish yourself Happy Pi Time.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In the universally preferred notation (except for those who take being non-conformist to absurd levels), you'll mean the year 3141, May 9th at 2:53.58am in the morning.
So we didn't miss it - but we will be missing it, as none of us are going to be living to be that old.
Then again, this is all based on the current calendar (arbitrary) and how you interpret the numbers (arbitrary) as well as the date/time notation (arbitrary, as pointed out above) ( the last two being related to eachother as there's no, say, 31st of april.)
When can we have grammar day? First, it is "whose," as possessive pronouns never use apostrophes. Second, it is not even "whose" because Pi isn't a person.
[
Since we all seem to be concerned about Pi today, I wonder if it's getting therapy?
It is an irrational number after all...
Lots of songs have been written about Pi Day (Google "Pi Day Songs" to find 'em).
One of the more creative is this rap song (with video) to the tune of Eminem's LOSE YOURSELF.
Best enjoyed with a slice of pie. Right, Agent Cooper?
... love this day. Unfortunately, we don't get presents or anything like that. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Magic numbers? WTF?
Pi is simply the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it's diameter. Where's the magic?
The square root of two is the square root of two. But I guess it's magic.
Did this guy study math at a religious school or something?
Yea maybe you are happy, but I'm 3.14ssed!
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
I like my coffee black...black as midnight on a moonless night.
This is some DAMN fine pie!
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[Leeland]DANCE WITH ME! DANCE WITH ME![/Leeland]
With the first link, the chain is forged.
When should we celebrate pie day? August 53rd at 9:73 ? Hmmmm, yea pie day isn't working out so well.
I'm packing my stabbing knife just in case I run into my buddy Jules.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
"ever is a long time."
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
In Indiana, they came close to celebrating Pi Day back on 3/2.
Poster deserves props for the mathematical correction on the day devoted to a mathematical constant.
Good luck ever doing much in base-pi, though...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'm looking forward to freedom day. My biggest concern is to go with an Italian or lemon-based flag marinade.
This schema fails if you continue to minutes and seconds:
.14159265 months .3893706 days .3448944 hours .693664 minutes .61984 seconds
March 14, 15:92:65
The proper representation is modular-place arithmetic. Instead of assuming each number chunk is either decimal or hundreds, you use the actual size of the place. The Calendar places are:
12 months
31 days
24 hours
60 minutes
60 seconds
So 3.14159265 is
3 months, remainder
4 days, remainder
9 hours, remainder
20 minutes, remainder
42 seconds, remainder
In other words March 4 9:20:43
at least in the engineering department. We are having pie as a group at 1:59 this afternoon.
BTW, today is also Albert Einstein's birthday.
Sorry, but we missed Pi day by a longshot.
Fortunately for those of us in the rest of the world where we use the more logical d/m/y time ordered notation we still have a couple of thousand years to go: 3/1/4159. It would have been earlier but April only has 30 days!
they just are.
God is pi... pi is God?
What?
My favorite part about this pi calculator are the two words at the end.
It is 14.3 in Europe today. 3.14 wouldn't be a valid date.
3/14 sound more like American Pi day. In most other places it is 31/4.
Oh, wait they don't get to celebrate at all!
I should celebrate this.
I'm saving the pie for "pi approximation day" which is the 22. of july (22/7 = 3.1428571428).
Like this guy:
http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000955.html
Not a Holiday Google didn't change there image on there site. Google is the authority on Holidays and almost anything. :-)
Do I lose all geek cred if I admit I think celebrating a mathematical constant is silly?
I know the real value of Pi, but I'm not telling. By the way, I also know where the ark of the covenant is hidden; no it's not in a federal warehouse like Indiana Jones would have you believe. I have it hidden in the same place where I keep this piece of paper with the actual value of Pi. But you'll never find it.
For those of us on 64 bit surely:
is the next pi moment.You 32bit suckers have already passed the last one:
And a long wait for the next pi moment after that:
Personally, I'm not very picky. I celebrate for the entire month of March, and I do my engineering calculations accordingly.
I wrote a PI poem for my girlfriend today :)
PI day is a great way to give your girlfriend/fiancee/wife flowers or other stuff. Fuck Valentine's day!
I already spammed my office with Pi to 16,384 digits.
And I've also already received question about why I sent it at 1:59:26 PM.
Oh, to be surrounded by smarter co-workers.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
Today is also St. Patrick's Day... according to some. Also tomorrow (3/15), also Monday if you don't observe Lent. Fuck it, every day should be St. Patrick's Day.
Pie is pronounciation only used in English. Everybody else is saying pee, or pe:) Pee probably is not cool enough in English :)
...and 9:26:53am.
Advice: on VPS providers
This post was made 9 minutes late I feel.
Cosine Secant Tangent Sine! Three Point One Four One Five Nine!
I sent my wife 3.14 flowers. Maybe now she'll get off my back.
-nd
Hm, just by the way, already noticed that Pi multiplied with 13,37 is approximately 42? Mathematics definitely play an important role for solving the answer to life, the universe, and everything...
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Not sure if anyone has mention this book (link : http://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Pi-Petr-Beckmann/dp/0312381859/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205526089&sr=8-1 ) :)
I found it entertaining and easy to read while at the same being informative/interesting. I feel the book gives a very good presentation of the thought process behind how different civilizations reached their approximation of Pi and a good insight into how brilliant people of different times where able to calculate Pi. I bet a lot of "ordinary" people wouldn't have a clue about how to find a good number for Pi, without hitting their "Pi"-button on a calculator
A good read. Very nice addition to say, your toilet library (I've got one...)
rj
It's my birthday too! 27. Anyone else out there with today as their birthday? There's gotta be more of you, I have 2 coworkers and a few friends with the same birthday.
What is the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness a?
Answer: pi*z*z*a
The patron saint of imperfection frees us from our sin.
And if our transcendental lift shall find a final floor,
Then Man will know the death of God where wonder was before.
Enjoy Pi day as it should be enjoyed.
... Or Bill "Woodie" Smith, or Ernest Gibbons, or "Happy" Daze, or Dr. Lafayette (Lafe) Hubert, or Mr. Justice Lenox, or Aaron Sheffield, or Ted Bronson, or Lazarus Long....
What happened to e and i day? You insensitive clod!
one of my favorites...
http://www.vvc.edu/ph/TonerS/mathpi.html
OK a new size TV
Since pi should really be what we know as 2pi, Pi Day should not be until June.
"who's actual value will -- now and forever -- remain unknown."
Actually Pi's value is known exactly as various series expansions. This is exactly the way you "know" a real number; by stating it's series. 2 for instance has the series 2,2,2,...
My UID is prime. Hah!
Today is a good day to Pi!
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20080310.html
In a Buckycentric universe "I didn't sleep enough" is just implied, there is no translation. However, one can still take a 10 buckute nap...
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
A time to gather with your coworkers and give them something they'll remember for the rest of their lives >:>
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/39
the current calendar isn't arbitrary, it is based on observations in nature. Time isn't arbitrary either, it is also based on nature. If it was just arbitrary you couldn't use it for anything else.
arbitrary: capricious; unreasonable; unsupported
It is none of those things.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"pi is an approximation of the ratio of diameter:circumference"
PI is exactly the ratio of diameter:circumference, we can only express it as an approximation in our number system.
PI = (ln -1)/(sqrt-1)
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
(incorrect numbers notwithstanding - thought I just copied them from my parent poster)
It's arbitrary insofar as that the year, month and day we live in right now is arbitrary. It's based on the Gregorian calendar. What if we went by the Julian calendar? Or the Hebrew calendar? Chinese calendar? etc.
Why couldn't it be
3/14 1:59:26.535...
Actually, since the calendar has about 365.25 days, and there's 2*pi days around its circumference, 365.25/(2*pi) = 58.1313430307395, the 58th day is "Pi Day".
Happy February 27, everyone!
I know, that's irrational.
--
make install -not war
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
In honor of Pi Day, I offer a story and a proof. This is a true story.
My mother (now retired) used to be an elementary school teacher in the LA area. One day, she was comparing the circumference of a
circle with the diameter and she noticed that no matter how big the circle, this ratio seemed to be constant.
She was very excited and she mentioned it to the other teachers. One teacher told her that it couldn't be true. If it were true,
it would be well known. The principal got involved and asked my mother not to tell the kids this since it is not an
official part of the lesson.
When she told me, I shook my head and explained to her that pi, by definition, is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter.
That she was right. It is always the same for all circles which is why pi is such an important constant. It was pretty
scary that no one in her entire elementary school understood this including the principle.
Now, for all those who doubt that such a constant exists, here's a proof (see Corollary 1):
Proof that pi exists
Happy Pi Day!
-Larry
I'm guessing those songs go on forever?
.
(Essentially cos(1), since sin(pi) = 0, tan(0) = 0, 1/cos(0) = 1)
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
From http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1122646 :
The following algorithm is a major advance in Math Research and was discovered by David H. Bailey, Chief Technologist, NERSC at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The algorithm for computing individual hex digits of pi is based on this formula:
pi = sigma(for k = 0 to infinity) { 1/16^k * [ (4/(8k+1) - 2/(8k+4) - 1/(8k+5) - 1/(8k+6) ] }
I'd give parent a +1 funny, but I already had posted something.
What is it again?
I put a billion digits of pi on my server available to download: http://micronetsoftware.com/pi_day/ The reason I'm intentionally trying to Slashdot my server is that my web hosting company (Inmotionhosting) gives me 15TB of data transfer per month on my shared hosting plan for only $8/month. Obviously it is almost impossible for an average site to use that much since most big sites are CPU intensive, and they apparently have a secret CPU quota. I want to prove to them that overselling is a bad idea, and I want to use all of what I paid for. I also have 1.5TB of disk space, so I extracted a small (4gb) zip bomb the other day. They didn't seem to notice. Eventually I'm going to use the extra space to backup my computers, instead of buying an online backup service.
I hate it when innumerates write about math. As others have already pointed out effectively, the precise value of pi is known. I just want to add that the value of pi most certainly can be explained, and is in no way whatsoever a testament to technology or computers.
In a base 10 number system, pi is not a whole number...but maybe in some other base number system, pi would become a whole number, and therefore known and exactly quantifiable?
what an irrational holiday
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I often wear my ThinkGeek Pi T-shirt to work and chicks dig it. I get laid by supermodels all the time because of it.
OK, not really, but sometimes people ask about it, think it's cool and ask where can they get one.
OK, OK, in reality, the stains from thrown, half-empty beer cans from passing cars do wash out fairly well (I walk to work).
The current pi _is_ a bit arbitrary.
In my opinion using the ratio of circumference to diameter is stupid. I've found that strange since the first I learnt of pi.
Doing the ratio of circumference to radius would have made more sense - the radius and circumference are more related to the same centre point of a circle.
If you see lots of 2 * pi in formulas that's more evidence people got it wrong.
6.28318531... would have been a better number than the existing 3.141....
...if pi is an irrational, trancendent, never ending and non-repeating decimal, does that mean that the circumference and area of a circle are infinite?
always mosh clockwise
This has achieved mild notoriety: The Pi Song
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
My sister's birthday is Pi Day. I was always jealous of that. Her initials now that she is married are A.E. just like Albert Einstein. My birthday is 7/22 and my oldest brother's is the degenerate Jan 3 which is another approximation for Pi. 3/1 22/7
Now eta bitta Pi :)
all of your bases are ours
I thought pie day was the day when Bill Gates was hit in the face by a pie.
February 4th, 1998 is when it happened. See the action here:
http://www.bitstorm.org/gates/
For a few years I took pies into work on that day. Everyone really liked them.
Now I even I
Would celebrate in rhymes unapt
The great immortal Syracusan
Rivaled nevermore
Who in his wondrous lore
Passed on before
Gave men his guidance
How to circles mensurate
etc etc....
As an aid to insomnia, I once had PI memorized to 60 places.
Then Paxil came along. With trusty alcohol, a wonderful combo!
Thank goodness for the above poem which I still remember from childhood.
(but I never really need to use more than 12 words of it)
.
- aqk
F U
Ever thought that by just throwing needles, you could figure out Pi? Check out this Pi by probability site. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BuffonsNeedleProblem.html