The Geekiest Of Holidays

I’ll grant you that Sept 19 is a contender for geekiest holiday. It’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day. And May 4th is a good choice too. “May the Fourth be with you.”

But, in my view March 14 is the greatest geek holiday. For today, is “Pi Day.”

3.141592653589793238462643…

What is pi?

Pi: the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

You’re probably familiar with the equations that use pi.

Circle Circumference = 2 pi * radius
Circle Area = pi * radius. * radius
Sphere Volume = 4/3 * pi * radius * radius * radius

Pi is a unique number. It’s undefined. That means it literally cannot be written out. The current record was calculated by Nicholas Sze a researcher at Yahoo. He tell us that the the two hundred-quadrillionth digit is “0.”

We’ll have to take his word for it.

The math to explain why pi cannot be calculated is beyond me. But, if we were to simply decide that an irrational number was too hard to deal with, we could define pi as simply 3.14. If we did, the only problem is that literally every other number would have to be defined as an irrational number.

If we did, maybe we could give them all names. I would suggest different flavors of pie.

The end

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

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