Discussion: Happy Pi Day!

How will all of the "strange" mathematicians and engineers who frequent Attackpoint be celebrating?

My favorite pi story of the day is about ants estimating area using an algorithm (Buffon's needle) that also can be used to compute pi.

So maybe I'll celebrate by repeatedly throwing french bread over my shoulder onto a tiled floor. But then again, maybe not.

Click here for a catchy tune!

And I thought I was a math geek. I am not worthy.

The pi anecdote I thought of was of randomly selecting points in a unit square (-1,-1) to (1,1), counting the number that fall within the circle of radius 1 centered at the origin. The ratio of points within the circle to total number of points trends to the value pi / 4 (the ratio of the area of the circle to the area of the square).

How will I celebrate "pi" day? Since it coincides with the festival of Purim (celebrating the Jews' victory over Antiochus's evil minister Haman in Persia, as described in the scroll of Esther), I celebrate by hearing the story read, dressing in costume, eating triangular pastries, among other ways.

A great day, indeed!

I am not a math geek. I am a google geek.

We had pie at school for all the math majors (and random others that wandered by in the hall) - pecan pie, boston cream pie, peach pie, apple pie and of course pizza pie.

Thank you Sandy for the menu du jour!

levitin, that only works if you define "randomly" so that it works...

it would seem mathematicians in the us are even weirder than those on this side of the pond...

Somehow imagining math inclined guys performing hula-hoop dance while holding pies in both hands draws wide smile :)

On Sunday at Boojum, you will all have the opportunity to (belatedly) celebrate pi day, and to apply precisely the same algorithm as that used by L. albipennis, a species of ant that lives on the Dorset coast (which, I will point out, is on ndobbs' side of the pond).

The basic idea is that the area of a region is inversely proportional to the number of intersections between two sets of lines randomly scattered across the region: A = 2SB/N*pi, where A is area, S and B are the total lengths of the two sets of lines, and N is the number of intersections. (Note pi in the denominator there!)

Now, as long as you know the value of all but one variable in the above equation, you can compute an estimate for the missing value. S, the length of your course, will be easy to determine as T/LW, where T = your time on the course, W=feet's min/km, and L= your "lameness" factor relative to W. You'll know N if you count how many times you cross a trail (which, by the way, will quite likely have been removed from Sunday's map). And then levitin can determine the area of Boojum Rock by throwing darts at the map enclosed in a unit square, and counting how many times he misses or doesn't. Finally, we apply the formula to determine B, the total length of all trails at Boojum. And the important question is whether that number will suffice for coach's post-training trail run.

Or, we could use OCAD to measure B, and then apply the formula to estimate pi! (Conclusion: orienteering is a highly relevant way to celebrate pi day!)

This may be crossing two discussion threads, but, IIRC, Boojum was the venue where I once discovered I had brought not 2 O shoes, but 1 O shoe and one bike shoe. (Luckily, I had one left and one right shoe.) It worked OK for a short O jaunt, but I would not like to extrapolate to longer distances.

I'm celebrating by doing laundry.

Don't you all find we have to do an inordinate amount of laundry due to training? Especially at this time of year in the mud and such.

My present for pi day is the tip of using Borox. This stuff works wonders at destroying those odours often associated with our outdoor equipment. Oh, and I'm not in anyway sponsored by Borox (though I wouldn't turn them down).

Pavlina was born today. That would make her a Pi-sces.

My sister - Nina Wallace (nee Waddington) - is also celebrating her birthday today.

I was doing Java programming today, making charts (not pie charts, pi charts).

I ran intervals this afternoon. Seen from above, my loop takes the shape of a giant slice of cherry pie. Yum, yum!

Our math department served not only pi(e), but also bags of M&Ms weighing 3.14 oz. (And yes, that's how Mars candy sells them!)

Here's another pi song by a buddy of mine from U of R. Dedicated to a math professor. (No, it's not that good, but it's highly entertaining live.)

We had a whole pi day celebration at school. All the math classes had a special day with pi related activities to do and at lunch time a local radio station came and asked pi questions and handed out prizes.

I don't even think my math department noticed :(

It didn't occur to me that 3/14 was pi day---There just aren't enough significant figures.

I had a Modern Physics professor who loved to "evaluate expressions" in his head. He'd race someone in the class using a calculator, and he always won. He was estimating, but it was always really close. One of his favorite shortcuts was using pi x 10^7 for the number of seconds in a year. He used it so much, I never forgot it. A few months ago, I actually calculated the percent error, said, "Wow!", then forgot the answer. I should have calculated the error using 365, 365.25, and 365.24 days per year, but I didn't.

I hate to break it to you people, but 3/14 is 0.214285714..., and March 14 isn't 3.14 months into the year, it's 2 14/31 months (2.4516...).

A particular minute on pi day adds some more significant digits.

March 14 at 1:59...

Our math department's party started at 1:59 and went for 265 (and a fraction) minutes. The game, like the number, is endless.

So, JJ., are you suggesting that we change the date of pi day to April 4? Bah, humbug!

And we wonder why people think orienteerers are "strange".

I used to observe Pie Day on November 3, but for reasons of dessert unrelated to mathematics. It's a somewhat pathetic story that's too long, and insufficiently interesting to relate.

Oh, let's flog this dead horse further. Nov. 3 is my birthday, and a great day to eat pie, or cake, or ice cream. In fact, any day is a good day to eat ice cream. Mmm. Ice Cream.

J-J, please relate, if not here, then by email to me.

I just read some high school kid in Va recited pi to over 8,000 digits. Apparently his parents promised him an XBox if he reached his goal of 10,790 digits - I guess he'll try again next year...

Well i remebered pi day that day. Some friend of mine told me I should celebrate it one minute before two in the night. But who is up so late anyways? I just bought some pie the same day, but it tasted like crap. But you gotta have pie. But I know my math teacher likes pi quite a bit. He was on the norwegian version of "beauty and the geek" (but he wasn't really a geek at all), but I guess from what i've heard, many others are much more interested in it.

Pi it ain't, but still:

Tomorrow, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning and in the afternoon, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.

Maybe this would be easier for my kids to understand than pi day.

hm, in some places it would be 01:02:03 05/04/06. i guess they'll just hav to wait until may 5...

May 4.

cinco de mayo?

Actually, for the afternoon it would be 13:02:03 2006-04-05 in Sweden (not quite as amusing...)

Extending the tradition exactly at 3:14:15.92653589793 in the morning my heart happily makes one additional beat in memory of the PI magic :)

HAPPY Pi DAY EVERYONE!!!!!

To Quote one of my favorite lines from "Revenge of the Nerds":

"Lets face it... you guys are nerds"

yes well if being a nerd gets you pie in math class and having fun then i'm all for it.

Alison, there will be many times when being a nerd gets you the goods. Stay nerdy. Stay strong.

Here's my favourite pi website of the day: http://oldweb.cecm.sfu.ca/pi/yapPing.html

Make sure you check it out in Monty Python.

At the risk of starting a trans-Pacific flame war, being able to celebrate Pi Day seems to me to be just about the only logical reason for writing dates with the month first. Presumably it will be a particularly big day in 2016 (although not as big as it would have been in 1592).

yes that is one good thing about having the month first. and i personally don't see the point of having it either way both ways work. i don't really see any pros or cons of having it one way or the other (well other than Pi day)

The indisputably best way to write today's date is 2006-03-14. Because you can sort on it. And you'll note that the date of this message is in that format. Ken is a smart man.

I have to dispute that. I would think it's better to write 2007-03-14. But that's just my opinion.

Whoops! Typo, or else I'm living in the past...