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Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Math lovers celebrate today, March 14th (3/14) as Pi Day, in honor of the irrational number pi. Pi, or p, is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.

Pi Day was started by physicist Larry Shaw in 1988 at San Francisco's Exploratorium, where he is known as the "Prince of Pi."

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Today's Random Fact:

Pi is an irrational number, meaning it cannot be written as a simple fraction. Instead, it can be expressed as an infinite, nonrepeating decimal (3.14159...) or approximated as the fraction 22/7.

Oddly enough, the day is also the birthday of Albert Einstein. He was born on March 14, 1879.




Bonus Fact:

The ancient Babylonians knew of pi's existence nearly 4,000 years ago. A Babylonian tablet from between 1900 and 1680 B.C. calculates pi as 3.125, and the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus of 1650 B.C., a famous Egyptian mathematical document, lists a value of 3.1605. Even the King James Bible (I Kings 7:23) gives an approximation of pi in cubits

Pi is represented by the lower case Greek letter, p, because it is the first letter of the Greek word meaning perimeter.