Yay! It's that time of year -- it's Pi Day. Come celebrate with a piece of pie from the Village Inn. You can order dinner beforehand or skip right to dessert. Of course, you can still join us without purchasing either.
Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of π. A free slice of pie to the cacher who can recite the most digits of pi. Hopefully, Akira Haraguchi of China won't be joining us as he recited pi to 100,000 decimal places.
Number enthusiasts have memorized many digits of pi. Many people use memory aids, such as mnemonic techniques known as piphilology, to help them remember. Often, they use poems written in Pilish (in which the number of letters in each word corresponds to a digit of pi), such as this excerpt: How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.
The concept of pi has been around for thousands of years. 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 King James Bible (I Kings 7:23) gives an approximation of pi in cubits, an archaic unit of length corresponding to the length of the forearm from the elbow to the middle finger tip (estimated at about 18 inches, or 46 centimeters). 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.
While Pi Day may have existed in one form or another since ancient Babylonian times (there is no definitive proof that it was NOT celebrated then), the first official large-scale celebration occurred on March 14th, 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. This event was organized by physicist Larry Shaw. This first celebration featured participants marching around a large circle and consuming fruit pies. Over the years, the PI Day celebrations have become a little more complex and usually involve more activities. This day received some much-needed respect when the U.S. House of Representatives passed HRES 224 on March 12, 2009, recognizing March 14th as PI Day. This year's activities will perhaps include the obligatory pie eating contest, cow pi toss, pie dodge ball, and, everyone's favorite, the pie drop – an activity in which geocachers drop pies from the top of a building to see who gets the biggest splatter. This year's Pie Drop will take place atop the Star Flyer, in Elitch Gardens. Although not yet confirmed, possible judges are founder of Geoaching, Dave Ullmer, Colorado geocacher of the year, Jason Winder, and guest judge, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The Village Inn serves a wonderful array of pie to celebrate the day including: