Comments on: Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day

infini — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:47:51 -0800

In case it has escaped your attention, tomorrow is 14 March which, in American notation, is written 3/14. If you have a certain type of mind you will immediately notice that these digits bear a close approximation to one of the most important numbers in mathematics - pi.

By: ronenosity

ronenosity — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:50:08 -0800

this post should have been posted at exactly 1:59:26

By: Mijo Bijo

Mijo Bijo — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:51:49 -0800

This post was made on 3/14 for a majority of the world.

By: Malor

Malor — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:53:56 -0800

Kate Bush's new album has her singing about a billion digits of pi. It has to be one of the worst songs ever recorded.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 23:57:23 -0800

Mmmm. Pie.

By: tspae

tspae — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:00:59 -0800

And by happy coincidence, Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!

By: Jerub

Jerub — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:02:10 -0800

This post was made on 3/14 for a majority of the world. Because everyone knows the majority of the world is America. For most of the rest of the world, the day was 14/3, or 2006-03-14.

By: scarabic

scarabic — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:04:25 -0800

I notice that, for my co-workers in Israel, March 14th is habitually written as: 14/3 Which means that it's not PI there until April 31st, a time difference of over two weeks (ahem - WELL over two weeks), as opposed to the usual 10 hours. WTF kind of math do you call that? My ass...

By: scarabic

scarabic — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:07:50 -0800

See how much better it is when it's done with humor instead of bitter anti-Americanism, Jerub? Go put the edge back on your "ch." Your attitude is a little less than darling, sexless innocence.

By: rob511

rob511 — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:10:08 -0800

I intend to share this pi post with twenty-two seventh graders in my circle, one of whom is Ray Show.

By: bardic

bardic — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:10:33 -0800

Ides of March.

By: silence

silence — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:32:23 -0800

i vividly remember sitting in the playground when i was a kid and suddenly realising that at just after half past twelve that day the time was going to be 12:34 5/6/78, and wanting to run around and tell everyone because no one else in the world seemed to have noticed. In my childhood world view I thought that it should have been announced on the news and that major international celebrations should have been organised. I wonder if anyone else realised.

By: lhall

lhall — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:33:34 -0800

But it won't really be pi day until 2015...3/14/15. And, early but related: National Mole Day, "October 23 from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m., Mole Day commemorates Avogadro's Number (6.02 x 10^23)". Cute!

By: sellout

sellout — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:40:27 -0800

Robot, Wizards, Kids, and Pi (.mov)

By: spock

spock — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:50:23 -0800

Which reminds me of one of the most remarkable/annoying domain names ever purchased . . .

By: spock

spock — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 00:57:53 -0800

By: duende

duende — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:06:22 -0800

The Exploratorium in San Francisco celebrates pi day annually.

By: Grums

Grums — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:21:13 -0800

My motto is Eta Beta Pi. What do you guys do when your (digital) watch is 13:37?

By: infini

infini — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:22:15 -0800

By: Orange Goblin

Orange Goblin — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:32:30 -0800

silence: 11:11:11 11/11/11 will be better, as well as universal not matter how you write the date. Pi is pretty cool, but more so when you realise the various applications. I knew for a while that 1 + 1/4 + 1/9 ... (the infinite sum of the reciprocal squares) was Pi^2/6, but it wasn't until I learnt how to show it with Fourier transforms last year that I really appreciated it.

By: dgaicun

dgaicun — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:36:13 -0800

Beware the Nerds of March.

By: cillit bang

cillit bang — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:40:03 -0800

The rest of the world celebrates Pi Day on 22nd July.

By: MinPin

MinPin — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 01:56:28 -0800

*applauds dgaicun*

By: costas

costas — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:06:15 -0800

What cillit bang said: for much of antiquity, pi was defined as 22/7, so July 22nd is a much better date, as 3/14 is well, 0.214.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:11:59 -0800

Fine, as long as we celebrate happy Eye day on the -1st. I suggest we celebrate in the square.

By: ab3

ab3 — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:13:02 -0800

this post would be a lot cooler if it were 1592 and not 2006. (in no small part because it would've been much, much more difficult to find an internet connection back then.)

By: thirteenkiller

thirteenkiller — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:35:30 -0800

That's ridiculous! 3.14 isn't pi!

By: AndrewStephens

AndrewStephens — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:36:25 -0800

An annoying PI link from our friends at YTMND (don't say I didn't warn you).

By: darkstar

darkstar — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 02:57:42 -0800

Sadly, though, there is no April 31st. Hence, most of the rest of the world will never have a pi-day. :( Maybe that's why May 1st is so popular around the world!

By: Plutor

Plutor — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 03:59:35 -0800

Malor: "Kate Bush's new album has her singing about a billion digits of pi. It has to be one of the worst songs ever recorded." She also gets it wrong.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 04:11:13 -0800

What!? No ice cream!?

By: davelog

davelog — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:14:08 -0800

Even more importantly, 3/14 - today - is Steak and BJ Day. Oh Honey...

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:17:31 -0800

Miss American Pi.

By: qvantamon

qvantamon — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:37:35 -0800

I Indiana, every day is Pi day!

By: qvantamon

qvantamon — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:37:58 -0800

in indiana...

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:42:01 -0800

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:46:19 -0800

(The amazing thing about that summation is that it allows you to get the n^th digit of Pi without computing the preceding ones - well, the n^th digit in the hexadecimal expansion, anyway. No corresponding formula is known that would allow decimal digit extraction for Pi.)

By: TheWash

TheWash — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 05:54:15 -0800

No pi thread should go without a link back to this, perhaps my favorite thing that Metafilter has shown me evar.

By: kcds

kcds — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:03:21 -0800

bitter anti-Americanism ??? wtf? I think perhaps your bitter-anti-american-o-meter needs to be recalibrated, at least from where I'm sitting. OK, so maybe Jerub could have given Mijo Bijo the benefit of the doubt in assuming that the what was meant was "This post was made on March 14th for a majority of the world" i.e. in most of the world, the date was already March 14th, rather than arguing over the literal representation thereof, but I hardly think pointing out that majority of the world uses a notation different than the (arguably illogical - oops, bitter anti-Americanism alert!) "month/date" convention we use in the States, even in a mildly snarky fashion, called for quite that kind of reaction. But what do I know? I'm all bitter and anti-American. And I'm a liberal. Godless liberal, excuse me. Commie bastard that I am. Make that stinking godless liberal Commie Nazi asshole shithead bastard. Christ! Oh, blaspheming stinking godless etc. etc.

By: edd

edd — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:18:32 -0800

In fact, it's been proven that the sort of formula given by Wolfdog can't get you a decimal expansion of pi (only binary bases permitted) - so it's not even like 'no corresponding formula is known'. It's that there is no corresponding formula. Doesn't mean there isn't some other sort of formula though. From towards the end of BBP-Type formulas at mathworld.wolfram.com.

By: teleskiving

teleskiving — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 06:54:47 -0800

She also gets it wrong. Not really, there's a small error in the printed lyrics which the website you linked to mistakenly confirms as being also present in the recording. Also there's a big chunk missing from the middle later on which is clearly due to editing. I'm inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt here.

By: solipse

solipse — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:08:35 -0800

I won't be celebrating until Febuary 22, 2222.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:14:24 -0800

4.66666666666666666666666667? Mmmmmmm, Pie.

By: 445supermag

445supermag — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:18:45 -0800

I remember a chemistry professor telling us not to get hung up on even powers of 10, He said "Mother Nature has e fingers and pi toes".

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:26:11 -0800

Personally, being in a dd/mm/yyyy culture, I'd prefer 22/7 myself.

By: SirOmega

SirOmega — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 07:53:23 -0800

hmmm.. it'll be beter on March 14, 2015 3/14/15 9:26:53 of course 6/6/6 is only a few months away.

By: arialblack

arialblack — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:13:36 -0800

I hope no one missed 5:55:55 5/5/5 last year. It was also the 125th day of the year . I had a party!

By: jrb223

jrb223 — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:29:26 -0800

Full video of the pi song sampled in the ytmnd page linked above. kinda funny, makes me glad today is pi day and not July 22nd. (though y'all had convinced me to jump on that boat earlier today)

By: scarabic

scarabic — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:39:27 -0800

I think perhaps your bitter-anti-american-o-meter needs to be recalibrated Heh. You are completely right, of course. Thank you. That was an overstatement.

By: beth

beth — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 08:45:42 -0800

There was a really cool pic on flickr that I saw (I think last year) of an amazing pie done up with a big pi symbol on it for Pi Day. But I can't find it. It was cool, trust me.

By: j-urb

j-urb — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 09:37:31 -0800

Its 216 digits and I have the number!!! Its in my head!!!

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 11:41:07 -0800

and it's 1:59 by my watch.

By: kimota

kimota — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 17:10:28 -0800

Dear God, do people no longer realize that pretty much the first web goddess (and pi fanatic) was *sigh* Eve Astrid Andersson? I mean, c'mon, you've had over a decade to get this!

By: kcds

kcds — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 05:02:18 -0800

scarabic, no problem at all, glad I could help out in some small way. It just so happens I'm offering $5 off (with the coupon below) bitter-anti-american-o-meter recalibration, or $10 off if you combine it with a priorities realignment. If you act now, I'll even throw in a sense-of-humor lube and snark filter replacement for free (void where prohibited, some restrictions apply, prices slightly higher in AK and HI, price & participation may vary. Sorry, no COD) --- clip'n'save --- This coupon entitles the holder to $5 off, like, stuff. Or $10 off, like, more stuff. --- clip'n'save ---