What Is Pi Day And Why Is It Celebrated?

By Sumesh Mohanty

🙌🥧Happy Pi Day🥧🙌

What Is PI?

Pi is defined as the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. This ratio always remains the same irrespective of the size of the circle. According to research, in 1706, Welsh mathematician William Jones is known to have pioneered the use of the Greek Letter (π) to represent this ratio. Pi is also known as Archimedes' constant as Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse was the first person who came up with an algorithm for calculating Pi. Pi is an irrational number i.e. “it never terminates nor repeats its digits” Modern Supercomputers have given the digits of π to over 62 Trillion decimal places. 

Image Source: Wikipedia

What Is Pi Day?

Pi day is observed every year to celebrate the mathematical constant pi(π)  on the 14th of March (3/14) as the date resembles the number 3.14 which is the closest approximation of the constant pi. In 1988, Pi Day was first celebrated by Larry Shaw, an employee in “The San Francisco Exploratorium”. This day has also been designated as “International Day of Mathematics” in November 2019 by UNESCO’s 40th General Conference. The entire month of March 2014 (3/14) was observed by some as "Pi Month". Within the year 2015, March 14 was celebrated as "Super Pi Day", as the date is written as 3/14/15 in month/day/year format.

Rapidly Convergent Series

A series is convergent if the sequence of its partial sums approaches a limit(number). Regardless of his innumerous Mathematical theories and discoveries in his very short life span, Shri Shrinivasa Ramanujan FRS discovered abundances of amazing new formulae for computing pi in 1914, the year he travelled to Trinity College, Cambridge to commence his study and research with Prof G.H. Hardy.

One such formula on convergent, based on modular equations:-

More Facts About Pi and Pi day

• Celebrations take place at many places with pie-eating and pie-throwing competitions on account of a pun based on the words “pi” and “pie” being homophones. Some institutions also hold competitions based on Who Can Recall PI To The Highest Number Of Decimal Places?
• This day is also celebrated as the birthday of Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955).
• As Pi is an irrational number, it can't be expressed in the form of a common fraction. However, an approximated value of pi is provided by some fractions thus helping us in calculations. For e.g. 22/7 which gives pi digits to 2 decimal places and 355/113 to 6 decimal places.