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March 14th Officially Becomes National Pi Day

Posted by Soulskill on from the pi-in-the-sky-legislation dept.

whitefox writes "The scoop from CNet is that 'The US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved a resolution introduced two days earlier that designates March 14, 2009 (3/14, get it?) as National Pi Day. It urges schools to take the opportunity to teach their students about Pi and "engage them about the study of mathematics."' The resolution is available online. I doubt it'll ever become a national holiday, but the Pi string in the article is pretty cool in a nerdy sort of way."

67 of 321 comments (clear)

  1. Ladies and Gentlemen... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    your elected officials...HARD AT WORK!

    1. Re:Ladies and Gentlemen... by MrNaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Troll? Perhaps the above comment could have done with a little more content, I don't see anything wrong with the implication that elected officials are wasting time and money on trivialities and showmanship.

      If they really were keen to improve to state of mathematics, there are some very good things that they could do to start fixing some of the problems with the education system.

      However, those things require action to be taken, and thus, responsibility for that action. It is easier for politicians to engage in this sort of political showmanship, because they look like they care about math, they get the political points for "doing something", and don't risk their actions working out not as well as planned (a risk everyone takes when they do anything) and exposing themselves to criticism from the opposition.

      Politics is the art of being gutless while beating your chest as loudly as possible.

      --
      I hate printers.
    2. Re:Ladies and Gentlemen... by penginkun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The more they occupy their time with frivolous stuff like this, the less time they have to plan their next rape of our rights and pocketbooks.

  2. But March 14th is already taken! by richy+freeway · · Score: 5, Informative

    Steak and Blowjob day has already claimed March 14th.

    http://www.steakandbjday.com/

    1. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by thestreetmeat · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's likely that if you're celebrating one, you're not celebrating the other.

    2. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by azgard · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe they should claim June 9th.

    3. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by multisync · · Score: 2, Funny

      At least we know what to get you for your birthday

      --
      I don't care why you're posting AC
    4. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 5, Funny

      If everyone shut their pie hole, Steak and BJ day wouldn't exactly be as much fun either.

      --

      There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
    5. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well, there are still two other holes available. Should not pose any problems... :D

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    6. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by Firehed · · Score: 5, Funny

      You can do as you please, but I for one will NOT be putting steak up my nose.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    7. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by DaFallus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Its also Einstein's birthday.

      --
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      Houston TX, USA
    8. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by Hatta · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The counterpart holiday to Steak and BJ day is Valentines day. They don't need *another* holiday.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    9. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by mdwh2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      I know it was meant to be, although I fail to understand the difference. Valentine's Day seems to involve couples being extra-couply and having a nice dinner (which could be a steak, or whatever takes your preference), then sex - be that oral, or whatever takes your preference. The idea that this is somehow a burden to the male that he needs something solely done for him just to make up for it seems rather bizarre to me.

      If he's that whiny about a relationship, I suggest "Have a wank and make your own damn steak" day.

      The idea that in a relationship, you're only romantic because it's Valentine's Day is worth criticising - but if you're in a relationship where you only have a steak and oral sex once a year, and only then because there's a special day for it, is equally a rather fucked up relationship...

    10. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by cizoozic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I thought that was fish taco and blowjob day.

    11. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by Deadstick · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, you could call it Steak and Hair Pi Day.

      rj

    12. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by megaditto · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Read your post again after you've been married over a year.

      --
      Obama likes poor people so much, he wants to make more of them.
    13. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by DiegoBravo · · Score: 2, Funny

      ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..... you're feeding the numerologists with brand new "data"!

    14. Re:But March 14th is already taken! by Hurricane78 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Done right, it will end up in your stomach anyway. So what? :P

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
  3. It's a Saturday by crow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ahh, Congress. Finally get around to encouraging schools to use this for educational purposes on a year when it falls on a Saturday. Brilliant.

    1. Re:It's a Saturday by Midnight+Thunder · · Score: 4, Funny

      Ahh, Congress. Finally get around to encouraging schools to use this for educational purposes on a year when it falls on a Saturday. Brilliant.

      No need to worry, since over time the meaning will be lost and it will be assumed it was national 'Pie day'. For the years to come Apple pies will be sold in millions on this special day ;)

      --
      Jumpstart the tartan drive.
    2. Re:It's a Saturday by RJFerret · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And apparently they can't do math, wouldn't July 22nd have made more sense: 22/7? (Not that school would be in regular session then either I know....)

      I'm not sure what 0.2142857 or 4.666667 has to do with Pi?

    3. Re:It's a Saturday by wildsurf · · Score: 4, Informative

      The irony in all this is that Pi is Wrong!

      For a variety of reasons, the number 2pi (6.2832...) works out much better as a fundamental constant than Pi, and it simplifies many mathematical formulas. The linked article suggests that 2pi be labeled a 'turn'; so in that sense, 90 degrees is a quarter-turn; etc. Surprisingly insightful.

      So while the rest of you jump the gun, I'll be celebrating on June 28th. :)

      --
      Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
    4. Re:It's a Saturday by tb3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Congresscritters can't do math; they have no idea of the significance of 22/7.
      Anyway, March 14 is Pi day because it can be written 3.14.

      --

      www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance

    5. Re:It's a Saturday by counterplex · · Score: 2, Funny

      Europeans and the rest of the world which writes dates that way can make 22nd of July Pi day. We're sticking to March 14th.

      --
      $x = ($x * 10) % 10 >= 5 ? 1 + int $x : int $x
  4. e Day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What makes pi so special? Support making February 71st e Day!

    1. Re:e Day by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

      Why not celebrate both and call it pie day.

    2. Re:e Day by wiredlogic · · Score: 2, Funny

      No mere physical constant can rival the perfection that is e.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
  5. Pi string by tpheiska · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Pi string in the article is pretty cool in a nerdy sort of way."

    First thought: Ah, they have some kind of string representation of pi instead of just using a double. Excuse me, I'll kill myself now.

    --
    "wahts woring iwth my tyoping?"
  6. From across the pond by Underholdning · · Score: 4, Funny

    I never get used to the MM/DD way of typing dates. If it wasn't for the sarcastic remark (3/14, get it?) I wouldn't have caught it. Unfortunately, we will never get a Pi day over here, as 3/14 doesn't exist. A sad day for the European lovers of Pi (a secret fraternity of which we do not speak)

    --
    Underholdning.info
    1. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      But Pi approximation day - 22/7 is quite a holiday I hear.

    2. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We're planning a big party on 31 April 2015 (31/4/15), starts 9:26.

    3. Re:From across the pond by OolimPhon · · Score: 4, Funny

      Not a problem! We just declare 31st April European Pi Day instead!

    4. Re:From across the pond by mtmra70 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      MM/DD makes more sense. How do you verbally say a date? Every person I know says "March fourteenth two thousand nine", not "fourteenth March two thousand nine".

      Many years ago I found an article about how dates SHOULD be written. Since time is always largest to smallest, HH/MM/SS, dates should be formatted the same way. Likewise, UNIX time is the same way with the smaller values to the right and larger ones to the left.

      Knowing all of this, and to be a slight pain, when I purchased my home I signed all dates in YY/MM/DD format. The mortgage company said that the person that had to review and file the paper work was going to be driven nuts ;)

    5. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      I use stardates you insensitive clod! Right now is stardate 62666.2. Our last pi day, stardate 31415.9, was over 30 years ago.

    6. Re:From across the pond by DerPflanz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Euhm, there are more languages in the world than English, many of them also use dates; I say "veertien maart tweeduizend negen". Which makes 14/03/2009. Besides, this way, the smallest (day) comes first, then the bigger (month), then the biggest (year). There is a reason that ISO dates are yyyy-mm-dd (big-to-small), so they sort correctly.

      --
      -- The Internet is a too slow way of doing things, you'd never do without it.
    7. Re:From across the pond by JanneM · · Score: 4, Funny

      22/7 is quite a holiday I hear

      Well - more or less.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    8. Re:From across the pond by Vadim+Makarov · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Slash-separated date formats are ambiguous, varying between countries. If you want to avoid confusion, use the ISO date format: YYYY-MM-DD. E.g., 2009-03-14.

      --
      17779 eligible voters in a district, 17779 'vote' as one. This is Russia.
    9. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      MM/DD makes more sense. How do you verbally say a date?

      I know just a few Europen languages, but here are some examples: "el 4 de julio", "4. juli" or "4th of July". We use either little endian (4th of July, 2009) or big endian (2009-07-04), but not middle endian (September 11th, 2001) like you do.

    10. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Whoever moderated this "insightful": you know April only has 30 days, don't you?

    11. Re:From across the pond by damburger · · Score: 2, Informative

      Its also the anniversary of the summary execution of Jean-Charles De Menezes on a tube train. But hey, lets forget about police brutality and have a geeky day.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    12. Re:From across the pond by Volanin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Nice!
      I am totally in!
      Now we only have to manage the silly limitation that April only goes to 30!

      --
      If I clone myself, can I call it a thread?
      If a girl winks to us, can I call it a race condition?
    13. Re:From across the pond by Stiletto · · Score: 2, Informative

      Everyone you know must be American.

    14. Re:From across the pond by Daimanta · · Score: 2, Informative

      That you can do more things with e. (a^x)' = (a^x)*ln(a) and every formula with the for a^x can be rewritten to an e power. Furthermore e^(i*g) = cos(g) + i*sin(g) and e is used extensively in calculating odds. Pi has its uses but isn't so omnipresent as e is.

      --
      Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
    15. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      considering that 22/7 is closer to pi than 3.14, I think it's definitely rather more than less.

    16. Re:From across the pond by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not according to the United States Social Security Administration. My birthday is (according to my parents), April 30th. SS has it has April 31st. I cannot file taxes on line, or do many of those other "silly" things since my validation fails. Numerous attempts to call SS have failed, even though I politely explain that THIS CAN'T POSSIBLY BE MY FAULT that they have my birthday listed as April 31st.

      I once braved the social security office, filled out an SS5, WAITED FOR LIKE 5 HOURS TO hand someone my form and validate my ID. I got it returned with, "we cannot process this form."

      I'm dumbfounded by this. Now I'm trying to figure out if I can use it to my advantage.......

    17. Re:From across the pond by xaxa · · Score: 3, Informative

      that would read 7/2, so it would have to be february 7th.

      In Europe (actually, most places outside the US) we write DD-MM-YYYY or similar (DD/MM/YYYY, DD.MM.YYYY etc). This seems more logical to me, as days are smaller than months, and months are smaller than years.
      In Japan, and in ISO date format, it's YYYY-MM-DD.

      2/7 is the 2nd of July (or July 2nd, in American).

  7. Day of the week by radarsat1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It urges schools to take the opportunity to teach their students about Pi and "engage them about the study of mathematics."

    On a saturday!?

    Someone didn't think this through...

    Anyways, I hereby reappropriate this holiday as National Pie Day. I'm having strawberry-rubarb.

  8. Not every year... by ameline · · Score: 2, Informative

    The last one was March 14, 1592. There will be another in 13917 years.

    --
    Ian Ameline
    1. Re:Not every year... by GospelHead821 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Naw, not really. They should just make it like Mol Day, in October. Avogadro's Number is 6.02 x 10^23, so Mol Day is celebrated on 10/23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m.

      You could celebrate Pi Day on 3/14 from 1:59 a.m. until 1:59 p.m. I suppose that means that children with late-afternoon math classes miss out, though. Maybe it could be like New Year's Eve and the kids are encouraged to spend the day preparing and then at 1:59 p.m. everybody shouts "Happy Pi Day!" and that's when the real [math] party starts.

      --
      Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
      Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea
    2. Re:Not every year... by Narnie · · Score: 2, Funny

      The last one was March 14, 1592. There will be another in 13917 years.

      Sweet! I'm going to make sure to keep my schedule free that day, cause I'm going to party like it's 3.14159!

      --
      greed@All_Evils:~#
  9. Pi = 22/7 [Re:From across the pond] by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unfortunately, we will never get a Pi day over here, as 3/14 doesn't exist. A sad day for the European lovers of Pi (a secret fraternity of which we do not speak)

    No problem. Define Pi day to be 22/7.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  10. Pie! by conureman · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just told my girlfriend it was National Pi Day, and she asked me what kind I wanted ;)

    --
    The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
    1. Re:Pie! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Cream pie?

    2. Re:Pie! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      you should have told her it was steak and blowjob day.

    3. Re:Pie! by Tryle · · Score: 3, Funny

      The correct answer is hair pie.

  11. A modest proposal by azaris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about teaching children about all the ways mathematics is useful in the sciences, engineering, public policy making, risk analysis, investments etc. rather than advocating pointless numerology that makes "mathematicians" look more like deranged Pythagoreans who worship numbers?

    1. Re:A modest proposal by FlyingBishop · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes! God forbid anyone worry about the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it's diameter. That would never have any practical application. I mean, it's only the basis for every calculation involving angles or anything. No one ever uses anything other than rectangles and simple right triangles in engineering.

  12. Caldendar check by damn_registrars · · Score: 2, Informative

    The last one was March 14, 1592.

    If we are going to use the Gregorian calendar, then we should probably see what Europe knew about Pi in 1592. According to Pi History, there was no significant contribution to the understanding of Pi in Europe after Archimedes until Ludolph van Ceulen came up with a 20-digit approximation, in 1596. I'm afraid he was 4 years to late for Pi day.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  13. Re:Typical good timing.... by fmobus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, because March 14th will always be on Saturdays.

  14. The world is bigger than the USA alone... by Langfat · · Score: 2, Informative

    Every person I know says "March fourteenth two thousand nine", not "fourteenth March two thousand nine".

    This means that every person you know speaks English. This is not the case in Europe...

    1. Re:The world is bigger than the USA alone... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      In ENGLISH, we say "fourteenth of March". In AMERICAN, they say "March fourteen".

  15. no the celebration is at 4pm by goombah99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, it doesn't matter, because after you've taken care 3 and 14, you still have the rest of the decimal precision to consider: .0015926...

    To be certain not to miss the critical moment, the students would have had to have been celebrating at some point between 137 and 138 seconds past midnight this morning.

    since the 3 and the 14 part are in different units one might as well continue that strategy. If you celebrate at 4 pm then on a 16:00 hour clock that is 15:16 to give
    3:14:16

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  16. Mod Parent Up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's probably a personal problem, but the representation of dates has always confused me. Once I found out about the ISO format, I was like "That's it!" Now I only ever use ISO, because it's as close to self-explanatory as you can get - everybody knows it's not their native cultural format because it starts with the year, and if follows logically with the next smaller time measurement in each position. I'd like to see us forget all date formats but ISO.

  17. Pi Day in Europe... by rHBa · · Score: 5, Funny

    In Europe we celebrate Pi on the 31st of April...

    ...oh!

  18. 4th of July? by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 2, Informative

    How do you verbally say a date? Every person I know says "March fourteenth two thousand nine", not "fourteenth March two thousand nine".

    No actually I always say 14th March and I write it that way as well. That is how it is written and spoken in English. Even you Americans refer to the 4th of July and not July 4 so clearly you used to pronounce it that way but have somehow lost it over the years. So if you are speaking American you are probably correct (with the one exception) but when speaking/writing English the correct way is always 14th March 2009. If you don't knwo any English speakers then there is no reason for you to have known this though.

  19. Ladies and Gentlmen by kitsunewarlock · · Score: 3, Funny

    PI IS EXACTLY THREE!

    --
    Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
  20. Puts the vi vs emacs wars into proportion... by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

    I call bullshit. Pi totally pwns e, and anyone who says otherwise must work in marketing.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."