Pi Day, Einstein birthday, Hawking deathday

Eds., Wisdom Quarterly TEST KITCHEN; Project Shivoham; Danica McKellar; Wiki edit

The anchors at Wake Up Charolotte! think today is all about pie, pi being a mystery to them.

How students can celebrate Pi Day outside of the classroom

(WXYZ-TV Detroit | Channel 7) March 14, 2023. It's Pi Day and we're talking about the best ways students can celebrate Pi Day and learn more about Pi (not so much edible pie but the number 3.14159) in their everyday life.

(Project Shivoham) The Evolution of π in Ancient India (12/14/21) This is the 5,000-year-old history of the evolution of π in Ancient India. (Twitter or Instagram)

What does Wiki, the default repository of all knowledge and wisdom, have to say about pi? Wiki is the modern hitchhiker's guide to life, the universe, and everything, as conceived of by the genius humorist Douglas Adams.

What is pi?

I checked out and passed on Pi Day. So long. Onward to infinity!

May the Fourth be with you. No, that's a different thing. Danica!

π ("pi") is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159.

The number π appears in many formulas across mathematics and physics. It is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed exactly as a ratio of two integers, although fractions such as 22/7 are commonly used to approximate it.

Consequently, its decimal representation never ends, nor does it enter a permanently-repeating pattern. It is a transcendental number, meaning that it cannot be a solution of an equation involving only sums, products, powers, and integers.

The devas and ETs who came to earth knew

The transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge.

The decimal digits of π appear to be randomly distributed, but no proof of this conjecture has been found [or proved].

For thousands of years, mathematicians have attempted to extend their understanding of π, sometimes by computing its value to a high degree of accuracy.

Ancient civilizations, including the Egyptian and Babylonian [possibly based on the much older Sumerian] required fairly accurate approximations of π for practical computations. Around 250 BC, the Greek mathematician Archimedes created an algorithm to approximate π with arbitrary accuracy.

Out of the mouths of babes: Tell us, Babe.

In the 5th century AD, Indian mathematicians made a five-digit approximation, while Chinese mathematicians approximated π to seven digits, both using geometrical techniques.

The first computational formula for π, based on infinite series, was discovered a millennium later [1, 2]. The earliest known use of the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was by the Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706 [3].

O, Buddha in Heaven, please tell me the best calculation of pi or that I will be in heaven, too.

If E had asked, B could have answered.

The invention of calculus soon led to the calculation of hundreds of digits of π, enough for all practical scientific computations.

Nevertheless, in the 20th and 21st centuries, mathematicians, and computer scientists have pursued new approaches that, when combined with increasing computational power, extended the decimal representation of π to many trillions of digits [4, 5].

Buddha+Einstein Walk Into Bar

These computations are motivated by the development of efficient algorithms to calculate numeric series, as well as the human quest to break records [6, 7]. The extensive computations involved have also been used to test supercomputers.

Because its definition relates to the circle, π is found in many formulas in trigonometry and geometry, especially those concerning circles, ellipses, and spheres. [*Yawn* Kill me now.]

Vegan gluten-free blueberry!

It is also found in formulas from other topics in science, such as cosmology, fractals, thermodynamics, mechanics, and electromagnetism.

In modern mathematical analysis, it is often instead defined without any reference to geometry; therefore, it also appears in areas having little to do with geometry, such as number theory and statistics.

The ubiquity of π makes it one of the most widely known mathematical constants inside and outside of science.

Several books devoted to π have been published, and record-setting calculations of the digits of π often result in news headlines.

[There's even a National Pi Day to celebrate it. And for some strange reason, or complete coincidence, scientist Stephen Hawking let go and left this world on this day in 2018. Make mine vegan, gluten-free blueberry.] More