Today is the 14th of March. But if you write the date, instead of the British version I used, with the American spelling you get the date 3.14. Hence the name Pi Day.
A little information on pi:
- it can be defined as "the ratio of a circle's area to the area of a square whose side is the radius"
- Babylonian mathematicians were using ð = 25⁄8, which is within 0.5% of the true value
- Krishan Shanal from India currently holds he world record for memorising exactly 43 000 digits; he broke Hiroyuki Goto's record of 42 195 digits on 19th of June 2006, and it took him 5 hours and 21 minutes
- you can start by memorising the first 1000 digits:
3,
14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494
45923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066
47093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105
55964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678
31652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491
41273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892
59036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575
95919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518
85752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946
39522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846
76694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371787
21468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923542019956
11212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999
83729780499510597317328160963185950244594553469083026425223
08253344685035261931188171010003137838752886587533208381420
61717766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235378759375
1957781857780532 171226806613001927876611195909216420198
- if pi doesn't light your fire, try e (Napier's constant); the world record of memorising e's digits is only 905 by Marc Umile (USA)
- the first 950 digits of e (this would be enough to beat Ulime!):
2,
718281828459045235360287471352662497757247093699959574966967627724076
630353547594571382178525166427427466391932003059921817413596629043572
900334295260595630738132328627943490763233829880753195251019011573834
187930702154089149934884167509244761460668082264800168477411853742345
442437107539077744992069551702761838606261331384583000752044933826560
297606737113200709328709127443747047230696977209310141692836819025515
108657463772111252389784425056953696770785449969967946864454905987931
636889230098793127736178215424999229576351482208269895193668033182528
869398496465105820939239829488793320362509443117301238197068416140397
019837679320683282376464804295311802328782509819455815301756717361332
069811250996181881593041690351598888519345807273866738589422879228499
892086805825749279610484198444363463244968487560233624827041978623209
002160990235304369941849146314093431738143640546253152096183690888707
01676839642437814059271456354906130310720851038375051
The chances are you’re never going to need to know even the first ten digits of either of them, but try it just for fun. Or as a tribute to Albert Einstein whose birthday happens to be today, too.
