Memorial Set For 'Pi Day' Creator (sfgate.com)

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Memorial Set For 'Pi Day' Creator (sfgate.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday September 23, 2017 @03:34AM from the saving-the-date dept.

"Three-point-one-four was more than a number to museum curator Larry Shaw," writes the San Francisco Chronicle. Long-time Slashdot reader linuxwrangler writes: In 1988 at a retreat for San Francisco Exploratorium staff, Larry Shaw proposed linking the digits of pi, which begins 3.14, with the date March 14. Initially the "holiday" was only celebrated by museum staff but it didn't take long for the idea to spread and Pi Day was born.

For 38 years, Mr. Shaw donned a red cap emblazoned with the magic digits and led a parade of museum goers, each of them holding a sign bearing one of the digits of pi. Shaw died August 19 at age 78 and a memorial is planned for Sunday September 24.
The memorial will be held in Mill Valley, California, the Chronicle reports, adding that "pie will be served."

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great idea but... by geoskd · 2017-09-23 03:51 · Score: 1, Informative

Pi day was a nifty idea, and I enjoy celebrating it with my kids, but I find it symbolic in many ways of the problem with our modern society that we are celebrating the wrong day. Most mathematicians worth their salt will tell you that the important constant isnt pi, but tau.
I find it amusing that or society chooses to remember pi instead of tau demonstrating their overall flawed understanding of the correlations between math and geometry. The two are intricately linked

--
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
1. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 03:54 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  There's also the fact that "3.14" equals nothing as a date, because most of the planet does not use the MM-DD-YYYY format.
2. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 03:55 · Score: 0
  
  Minority still > 0.
3. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:00 · Score: 0
  
  Maths apparently isn't the article writer's strong point.
  Did Larry start wearing his Pi hat 10 years before he proposed the idea ?
4. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:08 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  DD-MM-YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD make sense. MM-DD might make sense as a shortened version of YYYY-MM-DD. For filing documents I use YYYY-MM-DD as sorting lexically makes more sense.
5. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:10 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  That's why I'm waiting until May 9th of the year 3141 before celebrating.
6. Re:great idea but... by hord · 2017-09-23 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  There's also the fact that pi can change values based on the underlying metric with which you use to measure space. If you use the taxi cab metric (shortest straight lines), pi becomes 4. This, of course, applies to tau as well.
7. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:53 · Score: 0
  
  Not sure which mathematicians you're talking to. Most mathematicians don't care, and they'll generally say that they're equivalent up to a little bit of extra writing. It's not even like using tau saves time on average - there are probably fewer instances where 2pi is used than just pi (if there's any other multiplication, it's virtually indistinguishable). If you're saying that tau is more fundamental, just look at one of the most fundamental equations in all of mathematics: e^(i*pi)=-1.
  Now, I'm not saying that there aren't some who prefer tau. But to say that pi is somehow worse than tau is at best disingenuous (or somewhat tongue-in-cheek), and at worse shows a lack of understanding of what mathematicians actually care about.
8. Re:great idea but... by MangoCats · 2017-09-23 04:54 · Score: 1
  
  Makes sense that 3, the more significant figure, correlates to month instead of day.
  I thought there should also be a special moment of celebration:
  Month 3
  Day 14
  Hour 15
  Minute 92 - toughie, do we go for 92.6539% of the hour at 3:55:35.54 ?
  so, what do we do at that moment? Something that relates the radius squared to the area of a circle would be appropriate. As the tau punks point out, circumference to diameter is kind of clunky.
9. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 05:12 · Score: 0
  
  I thought there should also be a special moment of celebration
  I celebrate with my pie at 1:59 pm on 3/14.
  What's a 12-hour clock between friends?
10. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 06:18 · Score: 0
  
  It's a manufactured holiday to sell pies.
11. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 06:47 · Score: 0
  
  tau? Never heard of it.
  Judging by other posts, it seems tau=2pi.
  I have a variety of physics and pure maths books. None of them have it.
  Looking it up in Wikipedia, it seems that tau was only proposed in 2010, with a similar idea in 2001.
  In Hartl's manifesto, the Euler identity becomes e^(i*tau)=1. That kills its significance for me. The whole amazing point of the Euler identity is that an exponential, which gives nonnegative numbers for all reals, gives a negative number for i*pi.
  I'm not dissing that 2pi isn't interesting, but I think this will go down the same way Jackson's attempt to change "Lorentz gauge" to "Lorenz gauge".
12. Re: great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:14 · Score: 0
  
  e^(i * pi) = -1 can be written as e^(i * tau) = 1
13. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:42 · Score: 0
  
  There's also the fact that "3.14" equals nothing as a date, because most of the planet does not use the MM-DD-YYYY format.
  The Exploratorium is in the USA, and so with a bit of whimsy and reigned in pretentiousness, MM-DD does make sense.
14. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:42 · Score: 0
  
  there are many teachers and professors throughout north amercia that used the term 'pi day' and/or associated march 14th with pi before 1988.
  this guy wasn't the first, he was just the first attention whore to do so.
15. Re:great idea but... by Hognoxious · 2017-09-23 08:53 · Score: 1
  
  You're treating base 28 to 31, 24 and several cases of 60 as if they're decimals.
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
16. Re: great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 09:46 · Score: 0
  
  So pi day should really be April 31?
17. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 12:50 · Score: 0
  
  The USA does, which happens to be where the San Francisco Exploratorium, of which Shaw was a museum curator, is located...
  So go fuck yourself with your anti-American virtue-signaling, you pretentious euro-douche.
18. Re:great idea but... by camperdave · 2017-09-23 18:13 · Score: 1
  
  3.1410509?
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
19. Re:great idea but... by camperdave · 2017-09-23 18:25 · Score: 1
  
  Mathematicians should care. A circle is defined by its radius, not its diameter, so circumference/radius makes sense. Using the diameter requires extra definitions.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
20. Re: great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 18:31 · Score: 0
  
  Math PhD here. Literally no one of any level of intellect gives a shit. What's the integral of e^-(xÂ), bitch boy?
21. Re:great idea but... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 19:05 · Score: 0
  
  That is a very geometric-centred view. Mathematicians don't make a living from drawing circles all day.
  I'm just looking at the non-geometric definition of pi in Rudin R&C. He puts pi = 2*t_0, where t_0 is the first positive real such that cos(t_0)=0. So maybe the fundamental angle should be 90 degrees? See what I mean?
  Even in geometry, a lot of calculations involve subtracting angles from pi as opposed to 2*pi.
  This tau thing seems okay, but there is nothing wrong with pi, and IMHO it isn't worth disturbing a convention and making a century's worth of modern literature a little harder to read for future generations just to eliminate a factor of 2.
Virtue Signal - I celebrate Pi Day by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 03:58 · Score: 0

I may not know much about math but I can celebrate pi day to show the world that I am smarter than average!
Even those that believe in Tau are sad by burhop · 2017-09-23 04:07 · Score: 1

As someone who believes in Tau (see the Tau Manifesto here: https://tauday.com/tau-manifes... ), I still want to thank Larry Shaw. I've eaten many good American pies because of him.
Tau day has never quite gotten the commercial backing that Pi day has. I blame Hallmark https://www.hallmarkecards.com... . Damn Pagans!
1. Re:Even those that believe in Tau are sad by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:26 · Score: 1
  
  You could almost say that celebrating pi day is... irrational.
2. Re: Even those that believe in Tau are sad by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  Except that in Greek Pi is not pie. It is literally [pi] and not [pai']
3. Re: Even those that believe in Tau are sad by da · 2017-09-23 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  Although, I never noticed before, but pi + e = pie! So pie = 5.85987...
  
  --
  I reserve the right to be wrong.
4. Re: Even those that believe in Tau are sad by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:31 · Score: 0
  
  > Although, I never noticed before, but pi + e = pie! So pie = 5.85987...
  Also, the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness a is pi * z * z * a :)
5. Re: Even those that believe in Tau are sad by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 19:15 · Score: 0
  
  "Also, the volume of a pizza of radius z and thickness a is pi * z * z * a :)"
  That is a great joke.
Pi Day Creator Day? by michaelmalak · 2017-09-23 04:08 · Score: 3, Funny

Next step is to memorialize whoever thought of creating Pi Day Creator Day
Tau Day by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 04:08 · Score: 1, Informative

Perhaps now we can start teaching students about Tau (2Pi) and replacing Pi in our math texts.
Help, I'm trapped in a Universe Factory... by burhop · 2017-09-23 04:18 · Score: 4, Funny

Obligatory slashdot xkcd post. I'm sure Larry had it on his wall.
https://xkcd.com/10/
Americans got it wrong, as usual. by Harold+Halloway · 2017-09-23 04:42 · Score: 1

Should have been 22/7.
It's this specific to the U.S.? by Solandri · 2017-09-23 05:00 · Score: 0

AFAIK, most of the world gives dates as day-month-year. So March 14 in most of the world is 14.3. Pi day, or 3.14 only happens in the U.S. (which uses month-day-year). The military and East Asia uses year-month-day, but they still have 1124 years to go until the year 3141.
1. Re:It's this specific to the U.S.? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 05:44 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  YYYY-MM-DD is the only thing that makes any sense to me. Sorting alphanumerically also means sorting chronologically, and by time of day if you include the THH:MM:SSZ part.
2. Re:It's this specific to the U.S.? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:23 · Score: 0
  
  First sorry to hear about Larry Shaw, by creating this informal holiday also go me free pie, even a chicken pot pie once :)
  
  So March 14 in most of the world is 14.3
  Why this keep coming up about PI day is beyond me. First Larry was born and lived in the US, US uses MM./DD/YY and PI day was created in the US. So that should be the end of the story. Of course anyone is welcome to celebrate this holiday just like I am trying to get my company I work for celebrate some holidays from other countries, anything for a fun day :)
3. Re:It's this specific to the U.S.? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  Or you could wait for the 3rd day if the 14th month. I’ll provide the pie for everyone who cares to show up.
  I’m sure you’re the hit of your Fouth of May party, too, young padowan.
  Sheesh, can’t you allow a little unpedantic joy in the world without getting all International Sustem of Units on everyone (oddly abbreviated SI and not IS, so you can tail about how that and UTC are both a huge mistake because it’s all about you).
  I celebrate 14th March (by any spelling) by baking an Apple pie or a Key Lime pie in my Pi Plate (it’s a thing), whether it makes any sense or not, and now you can’t have any.
4. Re:It's this specific to the U.S.? by PPH · 2017-09-23 13:50 · Score: 1
  
  You could celebrate Pi day around the rest of the world on the 22nd of July.
  
  --
  Have gnu, will travel.
5. Re:It's this specific to the U.S.? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-24 04:07 · Score: 0
  
  The real pedants will celebrate February 27, which is the "radius" of a "circle" with a "perimeter" of 365 days. Or possibly April 26 for the "diameter" but that one you have to adjust for leap years.
  If you're just going by calendar numerology, then just do whatever. Any system that is in-use is equally right. The only differentiator I can see is that the guy who started the whole thing picked March 14, so that has historical significance.
More Accurate Pi Day by Roger+W+Moore · 2017-09-23 05:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't worry, for all us un-americans there is a more accurate Pi day on 22/7 since 22/7 is a slightly better approximation to pi than 3.14.
1. Re:More Accurate Pi Day by Hognoxious · 2017-09-23 09:08 · Score: 1
  
  If from Alabama, you insensitive clod! We can't have pi day since there's no zeroeth of March, amen!
  
  --
  Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
2. Re:More Accurate Pi Day by sootman · 2017-09-23 11:12 · Score: 1
  
  > 22/7 is a slightly better approximation to pi than 3.14.
  VERY slightly.
  22 / 7 = approx. 3.14285714285714
  3.14285714285714 - 3.14159265358979 = 0.00126...
  3.14159265358979 - 3.14 = 0.00159...
  The difference in the differences is about 0.000328 in favor of 22 / 7.
  In other words, either will do for casual work. Even NASA only uses Pi out to 15 decimal places. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/n...
  
  By cutting pi off at the 15th decimal point... our calculated circumference of the 25 billion mile diameter circle would be wrong by 1.5 inches.
  
  Which means I could work at NASA because one of my classrooms had a big PI banner in the front of the room and I memorized PI to 17 places from looking at it all year. :D
  
  --
  Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
3. Re:More Accurate Pi Day by camperdave · 2017-09-23 18:15 · Score: 1
  
  According to some date functions the 0th of the month is the last day of the previous month. Useful in some financial contexts.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
4. Re:More Accurate Pi Day by janeil · 2017-09-23 22:58 · Score: 1
  
  Quick shout out for 355/113, the closest rational number to pi with a denominator less than 30,000. (Or something like that. Anyway, it's ridiculously close.)
September 24th? by flargleblarg · 2017-09-23 05:02 · Score: 1

Pi squared is ~9.87, so shouldn't the date be September 87th?
Farewell to an inspiering man by hyades1 · 2017-09-23 05:28 · Score: 1

I did not know Larry Shaw personally, and yet I am saddened by his passing. Is this irrational?

--
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
1. Re:Farewell to an inspiering man by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:08 · Score: 0
  
  A lack of emotion could mean a lack of rationality. In other words, you're cool Dude.
Hahaha by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 07:30 · Score: 0

In my culture March 14 is Steak and Blowjob Day. But go ahead and enjoy your parital circles!
Deprecate MM-DD-YYYY by bib1620 · 2017-09-23 09:04 · Score: 1

The US and all the others should just ditch MM-DD-YYYY. Such a fucked up way representing a date.
It is half the circle constant - 6.28 by FeelGood314 · 2017-09-23 10:25 · Score: 1

The true circle constant that we should be using is circumference/radius. It would make so many things easier. Defining a circle by diameter doesn't even make sense as there are lots of shapes that can have the same diameter where as a radius uniquely defines a circle.

Learn something new and then tell your friends that Pi is the wrong circle constant. https://tauday.com/tau-manifes...

Still it is cool when anyone does something to promote math.
1. Re:It is half the circle constant - 6.28 by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 11:24 · Score: 0
  
  Literally half of all expressions would be simplified (eg 2*pi*r) but half of them would be more complicated (pi*d, pi*r^2, etc). Pi will never, ever be redefined. Move on.
2. Re: It is half the circle constant - 6.28 by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 14:29 · Score: 0
  
  2*pi represents one complete cycle. Using tau (where tau is defined as 2*pi) instead of pi would make MOST expressions clearer. Certainly clearer to reason about.
  But yeah, the benefit isn't great enough to overturn centuries of tradition.
  I still think in fractions of 2*pi most of the time, not in terms of pi.
3. Re:It is half the circle constant - 6.28 by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-24 02:59 · Score: 0
  
  > Pi will never, ever be redefined. Move on.
  Who said anything about redefining pi?
Then you? Re:Pi Day Creator Day? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-23 17:58 · Score: 0

And the next step would be to Memorialize you?
I see what we did there!
It's Memorials all the way do..., err, up!
Pi value. by Anonymous Coward · 2017-09-24 00:21 · Score: 0

Pi is exactly 3.
Professor John Frink.