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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).'"
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.
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?
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
Cosine Secant Tangent Sine! Three Point One Four One Five Nine!
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...)
I think this representation will help - http://www.cryptonomicon.com/images/p15.gif
BTW, forget the years of college math - I learned late in life that just about anything you'd need is in Cryptonomicon - http://www.cryptonomicon.com/text.html
Watch out for June 2 on this evenly-numbered year - that'll be Dick Tracy day!
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
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.
You can't do *discrete* math base pi, but there's plenty of other math you can do.
You can do non-integer bases, but it gets interesting. Non-rational bases get even more interesting. Maybe not practical for much, and you can't represent the "normal" integers usefully, but it's still a field and all of the abstract algebra still works.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Google-calc it!