Happy Pi Day!!!
22 July is celebrated throughout (much of) the world as Pi Day, for the ratio 22/7 is a reasonably accurate rational approximation to the number π.
Pi Day is also celebrated on March 14, in those parts of the world who would abbreviate today’s date ( July 22, 2008 ) as 7/22/2008, since March 14 becomes 3/14 under such a scheme. According to Wikipedia (“So you know it’s true!”™), only a handful of countries follow this scheme. Most would abbreviate using either a little-endian scheme ( 22/7/2008 ) or a big-endian scheme ( 2008/7/22 ). The amount of space on Wikipedia devoted to a flamewar discussion about the relative merits of each scheme is astounding.
There are many days when I’m happy to be a mathematician, and not a copy editor for an international open content network based encyclopedia.
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July 23, 2008 at 1:49 pm |
I must say March 14th on my middle school campus caught me by surprise. The Special Education and Resource teachers took the lead, incorporating hallway banners and posters. To students’ delight, pie was even served during the lesson, and well all know preteens learn better with sugar. A new tradition that is catching on in our district and seems to be growing.