Happy Pi Day! Today's date is March 14, or 3.14, the first three digits of pi, and that's equal to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
This is a special day for math geeks to revel in the glory of pi. Ain't it grand? And to celebrate Albert Einstein, whose birthday is today too.
Celebrations for the enigmatic number -- which never ends and never repeats -- are many and usually pie-related events including: pie-throwing contests, pie-eating contests and pie-give-aways.
One such give away is a public relations gem for defense-contractor Raytheon, who has sent out hundreds of press releases about the hundreds of pies they are delivering today to math and science teachers, who teach in schools located within a 3.14-mile radius of Raytheon headquarters in Waltham, Mass.
THANKS TO MATH & SCIENCE TEACHERS
The company is using Pi Day to publicize its Math Moves U program, encouraging young students to pursue math and science careers. The pie-deliveries are a way to show appreciation to teachers and say thanks for all the Raytheon engineers who were encouraged by their math and science teachers.
A Pi cheer -- an esoteric MIT sports cheer -- "E to the U," as reported by AOL News, "manages to slip in the first six digits of the numerical constant without breaking the surprisingly clever rhyming scheme:"
"I'm a Beaver, you're a Beaver, we are Beavers all.
And when we get together, we do the Beaver call.
E to the U du dx,
E to the X dx.
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159.
Integral radical mu dv
Slipstick, slide rule, MIT.
Go Tech!"
PRINCETON'S PI CELEBRATIONS
At Princeton University, New Scientist reports, there were four days of Pi events, culminating today on Einstein's birthday, celebrating the old boy's tenure at Princeton where he taught. (To read about Einstein and his time at Princeton, click here.) The extended weekend of events included Pi recitations, pie-eating and pi shopping deals for $3.14 or $31.40.
Why does Pi remain such a fascinating topic hundreds of years after mathematicians first began using the symbol?
PI IS IRRATIONAL
"What's interesting about it is that it's technically irrational and transcendental," says Time. "The exact digits of Pi cannot ever truly be known. There's no way for us to figure out what Pi is and that's kind of an odd and curious thing for science."
CLICK AND READ: "Happy Pi Day, Mr. Einstein"
by Sharon McEachern
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