π-Day
for those who are wondering about the equasion...
* In Mathematical parlance, the square root of -1 is always "i" as opposed to "x" which is an unknown
* 2 to the power of 3 is 8
* Next is the Greek symbol Sigma used in maths to indicate the sum of numbers
* is the symbol for Pi...
therefore, i 8 sum pi, or in plain English...
"I Ate Some Pie"
It is time for the Mathletes around the world (and us normal cachers down South of Africa...) to celebrate this most auspicious day. Although the tradition is to eat Pecan Pie at 1:59pm on this day derived from the first 6 digits of Pi (3.14159), we will instead gather the masses after work and those who want can grab a home-made meaty pie from the kitchen instead
For those interested, here are some basic facts about Pi for your entertainment.....
- Pi, or π, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Because it is irrational, it can't be written as a fraction. Instead, it is an infinitely long, nonrepeating number with millions of digits
- The first 36 digits of Pi are called the Ludolphine Number
- The official world record (as per Guinness) for reciting the digits of Pi is 70,000 from memory, although a new attempt of 115,000 digits has not been officially recognised yet
- The ancient Babylonians knew of pi's existence nearly 4,000 years ago. A Babylonian tablet from between 1900 B.C. 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
- The Greek mathematician Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) approximated pi using the Pythagorean theorem, a geometric relationship between the length of a triangle's sides and the area of the polygons inside and outside of circles
- Prior to the association of the symbol pi with the circle constant, mathematicians had to say a mouthful to even describe the number. One phrase found in the old math books was the Latin phrase "quantitas in quam cum multiflicetur diameter, proveniet circumferencia," which roughly translates to "the quantity which, when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference"
- Mathematicians showed that pi was also transcendental. In math terminology, transcendental means the number can't be the solution to any polynomial that has rational number coefficients. In other words, there's no finite, root-finding formula that can be used to calculate pi using rational numbers
DATE :Thursday 14 March 2019
TIME :17h30 to 19h00 or thereafter
VENUE :Stokers Arms, Kloof
LOCATION :From M13 take Village Road exit
COST :All fare for your own account to settle please
WHY :Because we know what Pi is......