Did you know that Tuesday, March 14 is Pi Day?
I’m both a geek and a softy for cool numbers, so I’ve known of Pi Day since not long after Larry Shaw made news about it with his escapades at the Exploratorium in the 1980s.
Although, I’m more aware of it than “usual” because I’ve been working on the Mathematics page on Cosma — it just naturally came up 🙂
If you don’t know what Pi Day is, then there are lots of ways to find out about it.
In fact, when you Google Pi Day, you’ll get around a whopping 1,290,000,000 results. Ironically, if you Google Pi Day Facts you’ll get a slightly more overwhelming 1,300,000,000 results (Hummmm, that’s “interesting”).
A simple way to cut through all that would be to search out the Wikipedia page about it.
However, I prefer going to the source, so I’m partial to the Exploratorium’s Pi Page.
There’s also a dedicated “Pi Day” site that has a page with the Top 25 Most Interesting Pi Facts. My favorite fact is that March 14th also happens to be Albert Einstein birthday!
One thing they fail to mention is the whole “Pi Day Food” thing. If you Google Pi Day Deals 2023, you will see that sources ranging from CNET to Good Housekeeping will give you advice on where to get deals on Pies and Pizza.
Now I personally prefer to learn about things using YouTube videos.
Alas, searching YouTube for Pi Day is only a bit less overwhelming than searching the Web. There are thousands of videos, and many of them are, non-coincidentally, 3.14 minutes long.
I spent awhile rummaging through them and think this minute long video is one of the best.
cleveland.com (YouTube Channel)
Cleveland.com (Official Website)
Now, for a bit o’ fun, it turns out that searching YouTube for Pi Day Song turns up slightly fewer videos. Here’s one of the cuter ones.
Tiny Tunes (YouTube Channel)
Tiny Tunes (Facebook)
Here’s another fun video from one of my favorite YouTube channels.
FlippyCat (YouTube Channel)
FlippyCat (Facebook)
I must confess that frequenting the FlippyCat YouTube Channel is akin to watching cat videos.
In fact, one of my favorite Flippy Cat videos features a cat!
FlippyCat (YouTube Channel)
FlippyCat (Facebook)
Ahhh, but I digress, a lot.
Onward, one of the reasons that Pi Day is so near and dear to my heart is that it is also one of a triad of holidays that serve as a prelude to the official start of Spring on March 20th (the other two were St. Pat’s and the Holi Festival of Colors).
So this post is also a salutation to Spring!
Happy Pi Day + Spring!
Find out more about Mathematics and Holidays …