Tag Archives: Cristian Vasile

Happy Pi Day! on March 14, 2014

It;’s no surprise that Canada’s Perimeter Institute (PI) is celebrating Pi Day. Before sharing the institute’s latest public outreach effort and for anyone like me who has a shaky understanding  of what exactly Pi is, there’s this explanation excerpted from the Pi Wikipedia essay (Note: Links have been removed),

The number π is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter “π” since the mid-18th century though it is also sometimes spelled out as “pi” (/paɪ/).

Being an irrational number, π cannot be expressed exactly as a common fraction. Consequently its decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanent repeating pattern. The digits appear to be randomly distributed although no proof of this has yet been discovered. Also, π is a transcendental number – a number that is not the root of any nonzero polynomial having rational coefficients. This transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straight-edge.

Fractions such as 22/7 and other rational numbers are commonly used to approximate π.

Someone at the Perimeter Institute has prepared a ‘facts you don’t know about Pi‘ flyer to commemorate the day, which includes these facts and more,

In the 1995 OJ Simpson trial, one witness’ credibility was called into doubt when he misstated the
value of pi. [for anyone not familiar with the trial, O. J. Simpson murder case Wikipedia entry)

Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco associates the mysterious pendulum in the novel with the intrigue of pi.

In 2005, Lu Chao of China set a world record by memorizing the first 67,890 digits of pi.

In the year 2015, Pi Day will have special significance on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53.58, with the date and time (including 1/100 seconds) representing the first 12 digits of pi.

Over on the Guardian science blogs (Alex’s Adventures in Nunberland blog), Alex Bellos shares Pi artwork in his March 14, 2014 posting, here’s a sample,

Artist: Cristian Vasile

Artist: Cristian Vasile

In this work, Vasile converted pi into base 16. The sixteen segments around the circle represent the 16 digits of this base. He then traced pi for 3600 digits, going from segment to segment based on the value of the digit. A fuller explanation is here and Vasile’s art can be bought here.

Have a happy Pi Day and a good weekend!