10 Funky Pi Facts
Here are some funky facts to brighten up your Pi Day. Happy 14 March everyone!
Weighing The Circle
Stand Up Mathematician Matt Parker once approximated Pi by weighing a circle. You could copy this simple experiment yourself, all you need is some basic equipment such as cardboard and a pair of scissors.
Your Pi Birthday
Photo by Richard Burlton on Unsplash
It is possible to find your birth date hidden in the digits of Pi.
Give it a go at the My Pi Day Website.
Albert Einstein
Photo by Slidebean on Unsplash
Physicist Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day, 14 March 1879. Unfortunately, Einstein never found out that he was born on Pi Day, as it was first celebrated in 1988. (Although, we do have to wonder whether Einstein might have noticed the significance of his birthday 3.14, given his great intellect.)
Einstein is not the only celebrity to be born on the 14 March. Actor Michael Caine and Gymnast Simone Biles are also lucky enough to share a Pi Day birthday.
Feynman Point
The Feynman Point is a sequence of six identical digits of “9” which start at the 762nd digit of Pi. They are named after physicist Richard Feynman who allegedly started a lecture by saying that he wanted to learn the first 761 digits of Pi and then jokingly say “999999… and so on”, as though Pi was rational. You can see the Feynman point up close when Matt Parker unrolled 1 mile of Pi Digits in this video.
Circular Poetry
Maths Poet Harry Baker once wrote a circular poem to celebrate Pi. Pure genius.
Changing the Value of Pi
In 1897 the State of Indiana in the US voted to change the value of Pi to 3.2. Thankfully a mathematics Professor named C.A. Waldo was able to stop this insane bill in its tracks.
It was amateur mathematician Edward J. Goodwin who had tried to change Pi to 3.2. His reasoning was that if he changed the value of Pi, then he would have completed a valid proof of squaring the circle. (Valid apart from using an incorrect value of Pi.)
Squaring the circle involves constructing a square which has the same area as a given circle, using only a straight edge and compass in a finite number of steps. Changing the value of Pi to 3.2 was Goodwin’s foolhardy attempt to make the impossible possible, as in 1882 Squaring the Circle had been proved impossible once and for all.
Indiana Pi Bill
Numberphile: How Pi was nearly changed to 3.2
Meandering Ratio of Rivers
Photo by Nick Russill on Unsplash
The Sinuosity Index of a river is a measure of how much it meanders, or how ‘wiggly’ it is.
Many people claim that the average sinuosity of all rivers worldwide is equal to Pi. When mathematician James Grime decided to test this fact by crowdsourcing river data, he found the average sinuosity to be nearer 1.94. It is still an open question: is the average sinuosity of all rivers equal to Pi? It depends on what you read.
Medium Article claiming the average Sinuosity of all rivers is Pi.
James Grime Crowdsourcing River Data
NASA only need 15 decimal places of Pi
If you can memorise the first 15 decimal places of Pi, then you will have memorised all the digits that are of practical use to NASA in their space missions. Any more digits and you will be going to a greater degree of accuracy than is needed.
NASA Article: How many decimals of Pi do we really need
Buffon’s Needles
Picture from Wikipedia
One of the most bizarre ways to experimentally calculate Pi is via Buffon’s Needle Problem. This involves throwing a bunch of matches onto a lined piece of paper and then calculating Pi by counting how many of the matches have crossed one of the lines.
[L: Length of the matchstick; x: how far apart are the equally spaced lines; p: the proportion of the matches that have touched a line.]
Carry out this experiment yourself using the Maths Is Fun Website Instructions.
Pi Approximation Day
Photo by Sagar Patil on Unsplash
If you have enjoyed celebrating Pi Day on the 14 March then you might like to put the 22 July in your calendar. Pi Approximation Day celebrates the fraction 22/7 = 3.14285714286. (22.7 in UK day-month format.) This famous approximation has been used since ancient times, with Archimedes proving that 22/7 is slightly larger than Pi.
You could also mark Tau Day on the 28 June (6.28 in American date format). Tau is equal to 2Pi and is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its radius.
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