π

Pi(π) appears where you least expect it.

Coincidentally, Pi Day is also the birthday of Albert Einstein, who no doubt knew more than a little about pi. Pi Day celebrants, usually children with an enthusiastic teacher and a varying degree of personal interest in the subject, learn about pi, circles, and, if they’re lucky, eat baked pies of various sorts.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk It’s Pi Day, a celebration of the mathematical ratio that man has been trying to unlock for millennia. But why are we driven to find the answers behind it? As we’re all taught at school, pi represents the number you get when you divide the distance around a circle (its circumference) by the distance across (the diameter). The rough ratio of pi 3.14 gives us the date for Pi Day. March 14, or 3/14 in American dating style, makes sense for a celebration of this famous constant. Famous constant Pi, more commonly known by the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, is the most widely-known mathematical constant in the world. Pi conjures a sense of mystery, so the symbol makes regular appearances in popular culture - it’s the secret code in both Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain and the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net. In ancient Greece the great mathematician Archimedes worked tirelessly to discover the ratio Pi shows up everywhere. We have pi in our eyes Pi can be found in the design of the pyramids at Giza