10 Ways To Celebrate Pi Day

alphadogg writes "There are holidays, and then there are holidays for nerds, and March 14 (3.14) is one of those. Based on the mathematical constant number that represents the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle, Pi Day has grown to become somewhat of a day to celebrate for mathematicians and techies. Here are 10 things to do on the big day."

Comments

10?

[Joehonkie]

Call me back when you have a list with 3.14 ways to do it.

Re:10?

[DemonGenius]

I guess that would be 3 ways to do something and 1 way to extremely half-ass it (or 0.14-ass it).

Re:10?

[VortexCortex]

0. Don't observe it but say you did.
1. Observe Pi Day by calling in sick, then running the most Pi-utilising software you have all day long (games).
2. Troll your favourite fora with ludicrous suggestions of how to observe Pi Day.
3. Derive the constant via measuring the circumference of a peni--

There, happy now?

Re:10?

[sconeu]

The editors should kill commenting on this story after 314 posts.

Re:10?

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon, you know you should simply celebrate it in one irrational way.

Re:10?

[vlm]

Or only let people with /. user ids below 314159 post.

Re:10?

[vlm]

Observe Pi Day by calling in sick, then running the most Pi-utilising software you have all day long...

So the circumference of goatse divided by the diameter of goatse equals...

Oh you'll be calling in sick the next day too.

Re:10?

[Beardo the Bearded]

Damn it.

Re:10?

[vlm]

Save it for tau day, you'll be OK then.

Re:10?

[Bigby]

I choose to procrastinate, so don't expect a phone call.

Re:10?

[treeves]

They're only letting people with UIDs below 3141593 post. Is that good enough?

Re:10?

[Hatta]

Maybe he found pi^2 ways to do it, and rounded up.

Re:10?

[An ominous Cow art]

We're all screwed, come i Day.

Re:10?

[maxwell demon]

C'mon, you know you should simply celebrate it in one irrational way.

Sorry but if your celebration isn't transcendental, you're doing it wrong.

Re:10?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you can't do that unless you squared r. Then we're going in circles

Re:10?

[billybob2001]

Maybe it's 10 in base pi.

Now I'm thinking about how base i would work and my head is starting to explode.

All your base are...

Re:10?

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

Re:10?

[quenda]

Call me back when you have a list with 3.14 ways to do it.

That would be irrational.

And it is 6 weeks too early. Real nerds might do big-endian (only 1129 years to go) or little endian dates, but middle-endian would be abhorrent.
I'll wait until the 31st of April to celebrate pi day, and show my mathematical superiority.

Re:I got one!

[zaft]

You got something? Next time use a condom. Kids these days!

That should gave been "e Ways..."

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If would have the benefit of doubling as an "e-/i-(something)" pun in addition to its numerical quality. And no, don't say it. I'm aware that my suggestions tend to be irrational.

Re:That should gave been "e Ways..."

[Baloroth]

If would have the benefit of doubling as an "e-/i-(something)" pun in addition to its numerical quality. And no, don't say it. I'm aware that my suggestions tend to be irrational.

It isn't the irrationality of your suggestion that is the problem, it's that it is too complex.

Re:That should gave been "e Ways..."

[Monsieur Canard]

Unless you multiply it by its complex conjugate - then shit gets real**.

** sorry xkcd.

Why is this article 10+ pages

[Lord Lode]

Rather than one single page which you can read in one go?

Re:Why is this article 10+ pages

[Lunix Nutcase]

Less ads on one page rather than 10.

Re:Why is this article 10+ pages

[Pope]

Thanks, Safari Reader!

Re:Why is this article 10+ pages

[Anonymous Coward]

How about 10 ways to link an article that spans a single page?

Re:Why is this article 10+ pages

[antdude]

http://desli.de/45B

You're welcome. ;)

Re:Why is this article 10+ pages

[Anonymous Coward]

Fewer.

2 ways...

[i.r.id10t]

Gonna go home tonight, and grill up a few steaks. And then hopefully the wife will give me a hummer... screw pie day, it is Steak & BJ Day!

Re:2 ways...

[VortexCortex]

Gonna go home tonight, and grill up a few steaks. And then hopefully the wife will give me a hummer... screw pie day, it is Steak & BJ Day!

Ah, you must celebrate the "American Pi" day.

Re:2 ways...

[booyoh]

But it's all three combined in one: Pi Day, Hump Day, and Steak & BJ Day.

Re:2 ways...

[Roger W Moore]

Ah, you must celebrate the "American Pi" day.

14th March is American Pi day...unless you live on some strange space-time metric where pi is 14.3.

Re:2 ways...

[serviscope_minor]

Sometimes I love the sense of humour and pedantry that the mods have.

+4 *Informative* so far...

Re:2 ways...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you must celebrate the "American Pi" day.

14th March is American Pi day...unless you live on some strange space-time metric where pi is 14.3.

Well in some other parts of the world (e.g. OZ), it's the 3rd of the 2nd month between December and January.

Re:2 ways...

[KevReedUK]

I'm guessing you can hear a "whooshing" noise about now...!

(for the slow among you, just add an "e" to the end of the text in quotes in the parent and look it up on IMDB)

You just missed it --

[Corf]

I'm on the east coast of the USA. This story was posted two minutes before it should have been.

Posted by samzenpus on 01:57 PM March 14th, 2012

Re:You just missed it --

[sconeu]

He was shooting for pi/2

Re:You just missed it --

[Anonymous Coward]

Missed? What do you think 3.14 / 2 equals?

Re:You just missed it --

[ab0mb88]

Sounds like you fell victim to a rounding error. We clearly need a more precise system with more significant digits for tracking dates.

This calls for...

[eexaa]

...walking in circles all day.

Re:This calls for...

[Anonymous Coward]

no that would be Tao day, you can only walk in half circles on pi day

Re:This calls for...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tau".

"Tao" is a metaphysical term.

Re:This calls for...

[Chris Burke]

I'm going to spin in circles on the ground like Curly where my hips are the axis and my body the diameter of the circle. As the Ancients would.

Re:This calls for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your wish is my command.

Lame

[Lunix Nutcase]

That was an incredibly dumb, ad-laden slideshow. How much does Network World pay to get adclicks for these stupid stories? Seriously did they spend anything more than 5 minutes chunking that turd out?

Re:Lame

[GameboyRMH]

After I eat at a celebration, I know I do.

Re:Lame

[Anonymous Coward]

There were ads?.....oh, right AdBlock strikes again.

Eleventh way?

[janeuner]

Support unicode in Slashdot tags and comments?

Birthday

[mederbil]

It's my birthday. When all of your friends are nerds, they totally forget about it.

I think this is what having a birthday on Christmas like.

Re:Birthday

[Oswald McWeany]

Happy birthday to you Mederbil, 'tis mine too. It is also Einstein's birthday- and my cat's birthday (approx- exact day unknown- celebrated today)

Re:Birthday

[VortexCortex]

Happy birthday to you Mederbil, 'tis mine too. It is also Einstein's birthday- and my cat's birthday (approx- exact day unknown- celebrated today)

Happy birthday to you both, and to Schrödinger's cat as well.

Re:Birthday

[Translation Error]

It's my birthday. When all of your friends are nerds, they totally forget about it.

Are you kidding? You have the one birthday nerd friends should be able to remember!

Re:Birthday

[scottrocket]

Happy birthday to you Mederbil, 'tis mine too. It is also Einstein's birthday- and my cat's birthday (approx- exact day unknown- celebrated today)

Happy birthday to you both, and to Schrödinger's cat as well.

"Happy"? I dunno... observing those birthdays could be deadly.

I live in Alabama.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Alabama. Pi day is the whole month of March!

'3'

Ok

I'm joking.

Here's the Snopes article on it

Re:I live in Alabama.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, in the state I'm from, such stupidity didn't get past the senate. It was a close call though.

Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have celebrated ad 1:59 this morning.

Re:Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you use a retarded date time notation,
2012-03-14 16:00:00 is a better approximation.

If you are American

[JohnWiney]

The rest of the world tends to follow more sensible date conventions - by increasing significance (14-3-2012) or by decreasing significance (2012-3-14). The latter works best for sorting.

Re:If you are American

[oodaloop]

Sensible to you maybe. The American way reads the way the date is normally spoken. We usually say "March 14th 2012", not "the 14th of March 2012. Sometimes other people do things differently. We also drive on the wrong side of the road! Get over it.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the way it's normally spoken here.

Re:If you are American

[Oswald McWeany]

The American way reads the way the date is normally spoken

Only in America though- most people elsewhere say 14th of March. That said- just about all countries have thier idiosyncracies... ... admittedly America has more than most.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

In English, you read it "March 14th 2012 in Spanish you read "14 de Marzo de 2012". I agree with you about doing things differently, but for some things it is better to have worldwide standards (like the metric system), to avoid expensive mistakes (like the Mars rover).

Re:If you are American

[camperdave]

Since all of last year's paperwork is in storage boxes at Iron Mountain, month/day sorts just fine.

Re:If you are American

[tverbeek]

Has it occurred to you that the date is spoken in that order in America because that's how it's always written here?

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It works in Japan also. They use the logical yyyy/mm/dd format, so it's 2012/03/14. The European format is hardly world-wide, it's just 1 of 3 formats in
use.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said, GRINGO!
By the way, how many inches do you fit in a mile again?

Re:If you are American

[artor3]

The American convention puts them in order of importance to a listener, and is WAY more logical than the typical European standard.

Month > Day > Hour > Minute (With the year, only as needed)

When someone asks you when an event takes place, the logical response is to give them the general time frame, and then refine it. For example, "When is your party?" is met by "The seventeenth, at 9 PM". It's understood that it's this month and this year. Another example, "When are you starting classes?" is met by "August 26th". Again, it's understood that it's this year, so you start with the most general time (month) and refine from there.

The year is rarely needed in speech, and when it is needed (such as in discussing history), it is usually on it's own. "When did Constantinople fall?" "1453".

In the European method, you give the day first, without giving the month. This is akin to giving the hour before the day... "When is your party?" "9 PM. On the seventeenth. Of June." It's totally backwards -- no actual information is conveyed to the listener until you finish the statement. The proverbial German phenomenon of the "verb-at-the-end" grammar, about which droll tales of absentminded professors who would begin a sentence, ramble on for an entire language, and then finish up by rattling off a string of verbs by which the audience, for whom the stack had long since lost its coherence, would be baffled, are told, is a perfect analogue.

Re:If you are American

[hobarrera]

I was having a really hard time understanding why it's pi day, thanks for this details.
I find the US date format extremely confusing, being that ISO date format is used day to day, and, ocassionally, the DD/MM/YY format. Standards are not really something the US seems to like.

Re:If you are American

[gstoddart]

Sensible to you maybe. The American way reads the way the date is normally spoken. We usually say "March 14th 2012"

But, for any data stored in a computer, it's generally a totally useless format, since you can't sort on it. unless you actually have it broken into fields.

When I write in my lab book, I write the way you said it. But when I need a computer to store data, yyyy-mm-dd makes the most sense.

We actually had this issue come up at a company I worked at. It's a multi-national, but the Americans insisted we switch all the computer program to use their date format. Eventually it took the CIO saying "too bad, this is corporate data standard" to resolve the issue. Mostly because it absolutely broke everything if you had to do data interchange (or share the system).

It may be closer to how we say dates, and match up with how many of us write dates, but once it's being stored in a computer, it's kind of a dumb format.

Re:If you are American

[MisterMidi]

*The* European format? Which one? Just 1 of 3 globally? Try dozens. You've obviously never done any i18n.

Re:If you are American

[Chris Burke]

Um the American convention is Month/Day/Year. So "in order of significance to the listener, leaving out the parts that are implied/unimportant" doesn't work. If the year is important then it's in the wrong place. Assuming that if the year matters nothing else does is not a safe assumption. "When you were born?" First you should tell me roughly how old you are, then when I should send you the birthday card. "When was V-J Day?" again the year is most important, but the month and date are as well.

The best convention is Year/Month/Day. It matches the idea of ordering them in terms of importance (decreasing significance) and is the best for sorting.

Re:If you are American

[treeves]

12 x 5280. Wouldn't you be more interested in how many cm fit in a km? Both are trivial.

Re:If you are American

[Apotekaren]

I find it more important what date it's on than what month.
"When is your party?"
"On the 9th".
It's understood that it's the upcoming 9th. Just like it's understood that it's this year. Unless we need to specify.
"9th of May"
or even
"9th of May, 2013"

The American equivalent would be:
"In April", which basically a useless bit of information for an event taking place on one night. Sure it's covers longer events "The roadworks will be done in May" or when you're not bothered to give specifics. "Eh, in April?"

All in all this all depends on how much detail is needed. "When does your flight arrive?"
For some, the answer "around midnight" will suffice, but some need to know "Twenty past midnight".
And as such, the point that the spoken language should control the order of the date/month/year setup is ridiculous.
Logic > Language

But if Americans can't pay enough attention to grasp the information in the sentence "9th of May" because of the word order, who am I to judge?

Re:If you are American

[artor3]

To take your examples, "When were you born?" You need to know the context of the question. If I think the asker wants to know my age, then I only give the year -- they probably don't care about the exact date. If I think the asker wants to plan a birthday party for me, then I tell them the month and day, and maybe add the year as an afterthought. The same logic applies to V-J day. Are they asking because they want to know the year, or because they want to celebrate the date?

That being said, Year/Month/Day is a good convention. I don't quite agree that it's better than M/D/Y, but it's at least as good, and there is a strong argument in favor of it. My real point is that the European standard, D/M/Y, is stupid and inefficient. I suspect Europeans get so used to bragging about the clearly superior metric system, that they figure that everything else about Europe must also be better. Hence their insistence that soccer be called football (despite the fact that they invented the word soccer) and that Celsius is better than Fahrenheit (despite one having standard outdoor temperatures generally fall in the 0-100 range, while the other awkwardly crams them into -15 to 40).

Re:If you are American

[artor3]

If it's understood that it's in April, then you don't need to specify the month, so "9th of April" doesn't add anything.

If it's not understood that it's in April, then you should establish that first, since "the 9th" is meaningless until then.

In the American standard, "My wedding is April [listener starts thinking about what he's doing next April] 9th [listener now refines his thoughts to focus on that date]."

In the European standard, "My wedding is the 9th [absolutely meaningless so far] of April [listener now can start thinking]."

If you can't see that the former is more efficient, then I can't help you. Try putting aside your constant feeling of smug superiority, and evaluate the systems on their merits. I have no problem acknowledging that the metric system is infinitely better than the imperial one. Why do you have such trouble accepting that perhaps your date ordering scheme doesn't make any sense?

Re:If you are American

[Chris Burke]

If someone asks when your birthday is, you tell them month/day. If they ask you when you were born you give them year/month/day in accordance with the idea that you are going from the general time frame to the more specific, bearing in mind that *just* the year doesn't give them your current age. Same with V-J day. If treated like a holiday (like your birthday), month/day is sufficient. If treated like an event (like your birth) then year/month/day is the way.

Basically in any case year/month/day omitting the unnecessary conveys information in a better order than month/day/year.

Also, Celsius is better than Fahrenheit because aside from at least being related to physical properties (if you're standing on an ocean beach, you could calibrate your Celsius thermometer right there), it also is translatable into Kelvin through simple subtraction. "Standard outdoor temperatures fall in the range 0-100" doesn't hold any weight with me -- even if I hadn't I've spent my entire life in places where that was not true. I mean, so what? Negative Fahrenheit doesn't mean anything other than "fucking cold". Negative Celcius means "There will be ice."

Re:If you are American

[Chris Burke]

Not that you couldn't conceivably calibrate any other kind of thermometer, the point is that the two values you are using for your calibration are separated by a power of 10 divisions for maximum easy of drawing the lines.

Re:If you are American

[damien_kane]

That said- just about all countries have thier idiosyncracies... ... admittedly America has more than most.

Not more idiosyncracies; just less "syncracies"...

Re:If you are American

[Hognoxious]

If the decision of how to store it is being influenced by how it should be displayed (or vice versa) you're doing something very, very, wrong.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Invalid argument is invalid. Following your argument, your mailing address should be in the format:

Country
State
City
Street, number
Lastname, Firstname.

The date format is "9th of April" because it's a contraction of "[the] 9th [day] of April".
"April 9th" leaves one thinking "April is the 9th what?"

Re:If you are American

[omnichad]

And don't forget, here months 9-12 are named after numbers 7-10.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

The rovers weren't a mistake. It was another expedition that crashed.

Re:If you are American

[Hognoxious]

He's confused about in America and here for the same reason a fish doesn't understand what "wet" means.

Re:If you are American

[BinarySolo]

That said- just about all countries have thier idiosyncracies... ... admittedly America has more than most.

Not more idiosyncracies; just less "syncracies"...

We certainly have a lot of other things that start with "idio-" though...

Re:If you are American

[denobug]

Someone please mod this one up for me.

Re:If you are American

[denobug]

And don't forget, here months 9-12 are named after numbers 7-10.

You have the Caesars to blame for this phenomenon.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's understood that it's in April, then you don't need to specify the month, so "9th of April" doesn't add anything.

If it's not understood that it's in April, then you should establish that first, since "the 9th" is meaningless until then.

In the American standard, "My wedding is April [listener starts thinking about what he's doing next April] 9th [listener now refines his thoughts to focus on that date]."

In the European standard, "My wedding is the 9th [absolutely meaningless so far] of April [listener now can start thinking]."

If you can't see that the former is more efficient, then I can't help you. Try putting aside your constant feeling of smug superiority, and evaluate the systems on their merits. I have no problem acknowledging that the metric system is infinitely better than the imperial one. Why do you have such trouble accepting that perhaps your date ordering scheme doesn't make any sense?

While this is true it falls apart at the year point. It would really make more sense to have // than the standard //. Since if you tell me "My wedding is April [listener starts thinking about what he's doing next April] 9th [listener now refines his thoughts to focus on that date] 2016 [dammit!]."

Re:If you are American

[rocket rancher]

Sensible to you maybe. The American way reads the way the date is normally spoken. We usually say "March 14th 2012", not "the 14th of March 2012. Sometimes other people do things differently. We also drive on the wrong side of the road! Get over it.

I'm American, and I say "14 March 2012." So do millions and millions of my fellow American veterans, because that is the way you say it in the US military. No need for extraneous noises like "th" or "rd" on your numbers, a fact early radio operators noted and approved of. That's my oral convention; I wish the American written convention was like the EU's: Decreasing significance makes sorting things by date *so* much easier. Btw, since you brought it up -- driving on the right hand side of the road means most people are actually steering with their non-dominant hand while they are working the gears. That was an asinine design flaw that could have been fixed but wasn't, and not just some benign example of an American idiosyncrasy.

Re:If you are American

[maxwell demon]

Also, Celsius is better than Fahrenheit because [...] it also is translatable into Kelvin through simple subtraction.

But then, Fahrenheit is translatable into Rankine in that way.

Re:If you are American

[Chris Burke]

You got me there.

Re:If you are American

[Hognoxious]

That's retarded. If it's on paper the format is largely irrelevant, since you have to read it and do it manually.

Re:If you are American

[Man Eating Duck]

But, for any data stored in a computer, it's generally a totally useless format, since you can't sort on it. unless you actually have it broken into fields.

Agreed, and as far as "fields" goes for days/months/whatever, that way madness lies. For storage/sorting you use whatever time types your DB/programming languages use internally, alternatively ISO 8601 for text storage (as you mention, sort of). For validation/period calculation you use/abuse the Julian date functions (astronomical, not the ordinal day). For presentation and input you use internationalisation. If you're treating dates and times as strings at any point, you're very likely Doing It Wrong (TM).

This should be beaten into every programmer's head in all programming intro courses.

Re:If you are American

[khellendros1984]

I usually use yyyy-mm-dd, but when speaking of an annual event (like a holiday), I'd likely say "It's on March 14th", ommitting the year. "March 14th"->"3-14"->"3.14"->"pi". It makes sense to me *shrug*

Re:If you are American

[ehiris]

There is no April 31! The rest of the world gets no pie.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

Fun trivia: riding on the right hand side on the road was instated by Napoleon. Who was left-handed. Meaning he could use his dominant hand for whipping drivers coming from the opposite direction.

Re:If you are American

[KevReedUK]

I would concur that to most of us, the method of displaying or vocalising dates that you put forward does appear more efficient.

How much of this, however, is because the bulk of us here are card-carrying geeks and think in terms of recursive refinement? I know that after all the database work I've done over the years, I have certainly developed my thought processes along those lines. I also found that as I started to understand RDBMS structures and concepts, my memory improved significantly. How much of this development in my cognitive processes is unique to those of us who carry our cards with pride, and how much is normal for the populace as a whole? I'll leave that question open to the masses (who, let's face it, probably couldn't give a damn, or wouldn't know what I'm on about to be able to draw such analogies).

Certainly, among the non-geeks I know here in Europe, they simply couldn't give a toss which is more efficient, they're more interested in what's more familiar to them. Most of them get very confused when they see dates in "american format", or blindly assume that the date is in "UK format", leading to confusion, exasperation and quite often comments about the "arrogance of Americans forcing their formats on the rest of us". The fact that, in most cases, it is trivial to set the preferences of electronic systems to display in your preferred format is, to most of them, something that shouldn't be the user's responsibility. The feeling appears to be that the world should harmonise on a single format "and ours is the right one, so that's what we should all be using". Convention breeds comfort, sometimes (often?) at the expense of efficiency.

I would imagine that the same is probably true of non-geeks in those parts of the world where dd/mm/yyyy is not the prevalent format. Whether the setting of the convention in the first place was geek-influenced, random chance, or just bloody-minded opposition to former colonial powers for the sheer sake of things, I don't know. Possibly a combination of all three. That being said, I'm unsure of which actually came first, anyway (and can't be bothered to look it up right now, but if someone wants to enlighten us all, please feel free)!

At the end of the day, as stated above, best practice for programming / database design purposes, is to stick to whichever format your RDBMS / language defines as the standard. Best practice for visual output to the userbase? Roll a die to pick which format you are going to use, because no matter which format you implement, someone's going to dislike it. Even if you implement multiple and let the user decide, they'll feel it's not their job to choose a setting like that, it's your job as a programmer to code specifically for their pet preferences and screw everyone else.

Re:If you are American

[Anonymous Coward]

"If someone asks when your birthday is, you tell them month/day."

Wrong.

Re:If you are American

[Chris Burke]

When someone asks you how far it is to your house, do you tell them the least significant digit first?

In that case month/day is in fact wrong.

Pi?

[Cro Magnon]

Nah, I'd rather have cake. But I will have 3.14 slices of it.

Re:Pi?

[oodaloop]

Whenever someone is cutting up a pie, I ask for 22/7th. There's usually a pause and a groan.

Re:Pi?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you even mean? 22/7 is more than 1, you are asking for 3.14 pies?

Re:Pi?

[Nemesisghost]

Nah, I'd rather have cake.

But the cake is a lie

Re:Pi?

[knarfling]

Go for broke and bake a cake shaped like pi. See how many people get confused.

Re:Pi?

[MarkGriz]

But the cake is a lie

But I thought Pi is Wrong.

Dammit, make up your mind people

Re:Pi?

[MisterMidi]

He skipped breakfast this morning.

Re:Pi?

[treeves]

You should stand OVER the pie and ask for 7/22nd of it. That would be a large serving, but conceivable to eat, unlike more than 3 pies.

Re:Pi?

[Cosgrach]

I have actually done that. It was pretty cool. And tasty!

Re:Pi?

[Hognoxious]

I could eat three pies.

Depending on how big they were, of course, which somewhat renders both our statements meaningless.

Re:Pi?

[treeves]

True, but did you catch my joke: "one over pi" or was your brain too fogged from excessive pie-eating blood sugar spike?

Explanation

[batquux]

"Based on the mathematical constant number that represents the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle"

In case you're reading slashdot and don't know what pi is.

Re:Explanation

[hcs_$reboot]

Hmm are you sure it ain't the ratio between the area of a disk and the square of its radius?

Re:Explanation

[camperdave]

"Based on the mathematical constant number that represents the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle"

In case you're reading slashdot and don't know what pi is.

Of course. Being of sound mind, we Slashdotters use tau.

Re:Explanation

[Bigby]

I think you are both over-complicating the matter. It is the ratio between PI and 1.

Re:Explanation

[guttentag]

"Based on the mathematical constant number that represents the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle"

In case you're reading slashdot and don't know what pi is.

As a long-time reader of slashdot, I thought it was the ratio between the circumference of the dot and the length the slash would have to be to fit inside the dot.

Pi is wrong

[robably]

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Tau manifesto proposes we should use Tau (2xPi) instead.

Re:Pi is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

So they should stick to their own day, the 28th of June.

Re:Pi is wrong

[AshtangiMan]

So celebrate on June 28th and leave the rest of us alone . . . but I'm taking a copy of the Tau Manifesto to the Pi party tonight. Mostly so that people will be prepared for the Tau party.

Re:Pi is wrong

[Chris Burke]

Mathematically equivalent values are equivalent mathematically.

This is even sillier than getting upset over the current convention.

Re:Pi is wrong

[denobug]

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Tau manifesto proposes we should use Tau (2xPi) instead.

But officer... Tau is not very funny!

Re:Pi is wrong

[maxwell demon]

That's still wrong. We live in a three-dimensional world, and the full solid angle is 4*pi. Let's call it psi. It is obvious that psi is the right number to use. :-)

Re:Pi is wrong

[RivenAleem]

So I get twice as much Pie? Sign me up!

In the spirit of Pi

[Lucas123]

We're having a bevy of Pi Pies in my office today. Yum!

Re:In the spirit of Pi

[squidflakes]

We're having Pi pie at the office in 3 minutes. (posted at 1:56)

Re:In the spirit of Pi

[oldmac31310]

Will you have a bevy of beverages with your bevy of Pi Pies?

Apple Pie

[A10Mechanic]

Celebrate with 3.14 slices of apple pie. I refuse to slice it any thinner, as it tends to crumble.

Re:Apple Pie

[MarkGriz]

Celebrate with 3.14 slices of apple pie. I refuse to slice it any thinner, as it tends to crumble.

Seems like a rational amount.

Re:Apple Pie

[MickLinux]

Pi? Yes, I want a piece, blueberry is superb (Spare the Apple pastries).

It's also 14.3 day in Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

Which means? Hmm....metric Pi?
Gimme my Pi in Yards any day!

Re:It's also 14.3 day in Europe

[homsar]

At least in the UK, we have an equivalent day on 22/7.

My Anniversary

[maxbash]

It's my 9th anniversary. It's awesome that it's on Pi Day, I never once came close to forgetting it. I always get reminders, like emails from Think Geek!

Re:My Anniversary

[hcs_$reboot]

Too bad you were not born in 1592

Re:My Anniversary

[treeves]

That'd be a year early, methinks.

Re:My Anniversary

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you're rounding up.

tmegapscm

Re:My Anniversary

[treeves]

i.e. the normal way of rounding 3.14159265....

Vote against Ron Paul

[mdsolar]

He voted against Pi Day. http://teachpi.org/stories/2009housebill.htm

Re:Vote against Ron Paul

[PRMan]

Like it matters at this point...

E day

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad leap years only add a single day to February, otherwise we might be able to have "E Day" on 2.71

Pi Music

[lobiusmoop]

Personally I like Pir by Autechre, it appeals to the math/electronics geek in me I think.

Our Pi Day

[netsavior]

First I taught my kids (age 5 and 6) about Pi with a circle drawing and a ruler and some string.
Then I taught them about the greek alphabet so they would understand what the "Pi" symbol came from
Then I taught them about homophones
Then I taught them about puns based on homophones
Then we made a pie, they learned about measuring and cooking.

Then we ate pie while they snickered about the fact that they don't have to do school work during spring break.

Re:Our Pi Day

[dubbayu_d_40]

By homophones, you mean iPhones, right?

Re:Our Pi Day

[maxwell demon]

No, if you look up the Latin word for "human" and Greek for "man shaped", you'll know that he obviously means an android phone.

Re:Our Pi Day

[subreality]

I wish you could teach this to the people in charge of education.

Excellent job nonetheless.

Real top ten list

[vlm]

Here's the real top ten list. (to get the real networkworld.com just click reload ten times while reading this)

1) Sing "Shes my Cherry Pie" by ... Winger I think, as loud as possible in your cube at work. Bonus points for interpretive dance and/or dressing up like the girl on the promotional poster. Extra bonus points for posting the video of your performance to youtube. Extra Extra bonus points for getting the video pulled for (c) violation.
2) Buy a raspberry pi linux board. Ha ha, you can't. Maybe by tau day?
3) Wasn't there some dumb movie a decade ago with some line about warm apple pie is like sex or something? Well you figure it out, then watch the dumb movie, and/or bake a warm apple pie, then...
4) This isn't a hallmark holiday, this is a /. holiday. To celebrate, if your significant other is female, buy her a new PC video card, install it for her in your PC, and use it for her to play skyrim all night. Thanks Honey!
5) File a bug because I only provided 4 ways to celebrate and promised 10. Idiocracy quote: Carls Jr, F you, I'm eating (lunch in my case)

See you on Tau day when I present another fun filled click fest of meaningless things to do about nonsense (although that sounds like a modern political platform).

The Joy of Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Weird "article" if a slideshow can be called that. I was surprised that they omitted David Blatner's book, "The Joy of Pi" (ISBN: 978-0802775627). David's been hustling pi for years!

www.JetCityOrange.com/pi/

Good day, lame list - instead, consider Tau.

[Starker_Kull]

I am a little happy that Pi day is noticed, and perhaps gives an excuse to think deeply about something rather than just bake pies - but it's a pretty lame list. I propose my own:

1) Read about Tau vs. Pi. The arguments for what we can choose in mathematics vs. what is given, require one to think quite a bit about what is useful in math vs. what is convention and makes one, frankly, appreciate pi far more than any of the activities in the article.

2) Actually try to measure pi. Note I didn't say, 'calculate'. It is revealing how hard it is to actually measure things in the real world beyond three or four significant figures, and it makes one appreciate the beauty of abstract calculations.

3) Read about e. e is actually much cooler in many ways, but because there is no ridiculuously simple, visualizable definition of it, it doesn't get the limelight (such as it is.) A great historical book on e: "e": The Story of a Number

But if you insist on knowing what the slideshow list of ten things is:

1) Make a pi-themed pie
2) Rock a Pi Day T-shirt
3) Write Pi-kus or Pi-ems
4) Go on a pi scavenger hunt (this, at least, has some vague mathematical attraction, although you could accomplish the same with a random sequence)
5) See how many digits of pi you can recite
6) Watch "Pi" the movie (gibberish math, but a cool movie that gets a little bit of the obsessional nature that can capture those who dive into abstract mathematics)
7) Listen to Pi music
8) Tell Pi Day jokes
9) Celebrate Albert Einstein's birthday (same day)
10) Read a book about pi (they don't even suggest the classic historical work on pi, by Beckman: A History of Pi

Like I said - mostly silly, not very mathematical. I would prefer pi day be a day of observance rather than a secular holiday :-)

Outside the States

[SMoynihan]

...but April only has 30 days?!

(for those with a logical "day -> month" progression)

Re:Outside the States

[netsavior]

Year-month-day is the correct way, you little endian bastard.

Re:Outside the States

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, 2012 is a leap year.

Heretics!

[Anonymous Coward]

The real pi day is pi approximation day is 22/7. Death to the unbelievers!

Re:Heretics!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to present you with your winnings, of 1 (one) Internet.

Congratulations!

11?

[hcs_$reboot]

3.14159265358979323846 26433832795028841971 69399375105820974944 59230781640628620899 8628034825342..70679

it all makes sense

[mostlywibbly]

1337% of pi is 42

Re:it all makes sense

[maxwell demon]

And a century has about pi gigaseconds.

TAU RULES

[Anonymous Coward]

PI Drools.

Two's Day

[seven of five]

How about celebrating Two's Day... two being the ratio of a circle's diameter to its radius. Make it the second working day of every week...

nothing to celebrate

[Anonymous Coward]

After seen the tragic in Switzerland I don't think there's much to celebrate...

Re:nothing to celebrate

[xevioso]

What the are you talking about?

Re:nothing to celebrate

[KevReedUK]

GP is taking us off-topic, but to continue in this vein and explain the reference:

Major coach crash in Swizerland on Wednesday night. Many children killed, many more injured.

for details, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17362643

Pi

[Templar]

How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.

Pie of course

[shreak]

When I got home yesterday my daughter asked me "Will you help me make pumpkin pie if I go get the stuff for it?" I said "sure" because opportunities to hang out with my daughter are rare to be sure. So we're making pumpkin pie, well she is, I'm just there for moral support I guess.

I ask "So what is the pie for?"
She says "Tomorrow is pi day so I'm bringing pie to school"
I say "Oh, cool"

Inside I'm thinking "How the fuck did I get shit this right?"

signed,
stumbling into success

DMY

[Dainutehvs]

I wonder if I had to celebrate PI day in 3rd of January or what ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country ).

Steak and Blowjob?

[Anonymous Coward]

??

You gotta geek out on Pi Day

[EuNao]

This post missed some of the the most important things to do on Pi Day in my opinion. You should learn something about math on Pi Day, like something about Euler's Identity. You should teach your kids the wonder of math, there are simple things like teaching them about the area of a circle or you could show them Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land. You should not just bake a Pie but decorate it or some sugar cookies with circles, ellipses and cylinders. Make the day into an event. Celebrate being different, we are Geeks after all. Lastly of course you can't forget the Mathematical Pi song. Play it LOUD!!

Way to go

[PPH]

Most of the kids in my town will be celebrating April 20th.

Eleven

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I live it's 14-3.

Tau day

[hoggoth]

No thanks. I'll be celebrating a holiday that makes more sense on June 28th.

Number One Thing to Do

[makoto149]

1. Move out of Mom's basement. LOL. Nerds.

Time for Pi Approaching

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, 3.141592653589793 translates to 03/14 at 3:55:59pm (15 + fractional hour). I'm having cheesecake. No, not that kind.

Pi Day, 14 March? 22 July (22/7) is better.

[mfarah]

At least for everyone in the world that prefers the "day/month/year" system over the dumb "month/day/year" one.

Also, 22/7 is a better approximation to the actual pi value than 3.14.

And... on that day I will, if all goes well, on vacation, so I'll be able to actually celebrate the day.

There.

Re:Pi Day, 14 March? 22 July (22/7) is better.

[omnichad]

22/7 rounds to 3.14. If you go one more digit out, it rounds wrong. How is it a better approximation? Because it's irrational?

Re:Pi Day, 14 March? 22 July (22/7) is better.

[mfarah]

Pi = 3.14159265358979.......
3.14 = 3.14
22/7 = 3.14285714...

|Pi-3.14| = 0.00159265358979...
|Pi-22/7| = 0.00126448926735...

So, yeah, 22/7 is a better approximation.

For that matter, 355/113 is much better, but we don't have that many months or months that long in our calendar.

What I'll do ...

[lolococo]

I'll buy Popeye pi pies.

The All Important Formula

[Scarletdown]

Just remember, kids...

Pie R Round
Cobbler R Square(ish...usually)

Re:The All Important Formula

[Anonymous Coward]

My math teacher kept trying to teach me "Pie are square." [pi*r^2]
I kept correcting him saying that "Pies are round!"

10 things to do on binary day

[Anonymous Coward]

eat, sleep

B.S. Johnson and The New Pie!

[Rastl]

Thanks Mr. Johnson for giving us the entire month of March as the month we celebrate The New Pie!

Congrats to everyone who gets the reference.

Leap Year

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we celebrate Pi Day on a leap year?

Find Important Dates

[Cat_Herder_GoatRoper]

I found my DOB within the sequence. MMDDYY http://www.eveandersson.com/pi/digits/1000000

Re:Find Important Dates

[VisceralLogic]

Keep looking. Your social security, telephone, and credit card numbers are also in there!

Wrong day

[WinstonWolfIT]

Shouldn't it have been at 9:16:33.600 on the 4th?

Its my birthday!

[GDeputy]

So send me pie! I'm not picky, but chocolate cream is my favorite...

Discrimination against Europeans

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept that the 14th of March should be written "3-14" is discrimination against the Europeans, who use the more logical and non-bi-endian method of 'day month year'.

So if I want my piece of pie, I have to wait until the third day of the fourteenth month after the start of 2012, which is February 2013!

How about another proposal? Since the value of PI is 22/7, in the interests of internationalism, why don't we celebrate PI day on the 22nd of July? Or both? Apple pie for the Americans, and something else for the Europeans!

I dont get it...

[Eunuchswear]

I mean, it's still some time 'till July 22nd, why the fuss now?

Marie Callender's

[W. Justice Black]

Chicken Pot Pie or Shepherd's Pie
Salad
Slice of Pie (Your Choice)

$11 in the bay area.

Went there for lunch today :-)

Pi Day

[Anonymous Coward]

Today is national Pi Day, we are giving away a new I Pad. Go to our website into the play section to enter the contest pizone.org/pi/index.html

it is really a day?

[Anonymous Coward]

surely celebrating a whole day is...irrational?

What are the odds of not finding my birthday?

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried both mmddyyyy and ddmmyyyy and none are in the first one million decimals of pi. Am I right to think the odds are 1 out of 2*(1e6-8)=1999984?

mmddyy is there but not ddmmyy.

Anyone knows where I can search the decimals of tau and/or more decimals of pi?

Imagine a world without pi...

[braindrainbahrain]

I did. Circles ended up being kind of squashed and flat, except they were that way all the way around.

(paraphrased from an ancient website about pi approximation day)

Pre-St. Patrick's Day Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you memorize a lot of Pi digits you could get in The Guinness Book of World Records. It may sound a little irrational but I’d like to celebrate Pi Day as a pre-St. Patrick’s Day celebration. So I’ll eat my corned beef and cabbage as a Rueben sandwich and toast to Pi with a Guinness.

Pre-St. Patrick's Day Pi

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you memorize a lot of Pi digits you could get in The Guinness Book of World Records. It may sound a little irrational but I’d like to celebrate Pi Day as a pre-St. Patrick’s Day celebration. So I’ll eat my corned beef and cabbage as a Rueben sandwich and toast to Pi with a Guinness.

Buy one!

[ccanucs]

Buy a Raspberry Pi - what better way? ! :-)

Pi birthdays

[Anonymous Coward]

3/14 (or 14/3) is rather arbitrary. At my house we celebrate Pi anniversaries (and, in a week, our twin girls Pi birthday is coming up.) There's some ambiguity if pi years should be 3 years + 0.14159th of the current year, or pi * (average length of year).

how about..

[jmb1990]

...eating 31.42% of a an actual pie?

bad headline

[Tastecicles]

Shouldn't it be "3.14159... things to do on Pi day"?