Celebration of PI-Day

Picture of Pi

 

This week marks a special day for many who study mathematics; it is Pi week!  Pi, an irrational number, is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter.  The number most associated to Pi is 3.14 which matches the date of March 14 or Pi Day.

History about Pi
By measuring circular objects, it has always turned out that a circle is a little more than 3 times its width around. In the Old Testament of the Bible (1 Kings 7:23), a circular pool is referred to as being 30 cubits around, and 10 cubits across. The mathematician Archimedes used polygons with many sides to approximate circles and determined that Pi was approximately 22/7. The symbol (Greek letter “π”) was first used in 1706 by William Jones. A ‘p’ was chosen for ‘perimeter’ of circles, and the use of π became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737. In recent years, Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits past its decimal. Only 39 digits past the decimal are needed to calculate the spherical volume of our entire universe accurately, but because of Pi’s infinite & patternless nature, it’s a fun challenge to memorize and to computationally calculate more and more digits.  Source: http://www.piday.org/learn-about-pi/

Videos about Pi

Classroom Ideas for celebrating Pi Day

  • Bring pie to class and figure Pi by creating ratio of their circumference and diameter - then eat the pie

  • Compare the ratios of circumference and diameter to different type of circles of different sizes and discuss the constant that seems to be revealed

  • Make a visual representation of Pi - allow learners to create their own meaning of Pi

What are you and your classes doing to celebrate Pi Day?

Picture of Einstein

OH!  Also, Albert Einstein is celebrating his 138th Birthday on Pi Day, too!

Please share what you are doing this week to celebrate Pi Day!

Brooke Istas
Moderator Math and Numeracy Community of Practice
 

Comments

Thanks Brooke,

Several years ago, Hilary Harper, a choreographer and faculty member at Principia Colleage in Illinois, was creating a piece with her dancers, and one suggested using Pi.

Hillary described it this way:
“Merce Cunningham was a giant in the dance world. He gave us an entirely new way of looking at and making dances. His passing this summer (2009) gave me a good reason to try my hand at making a dance that borrowed his philosophy. The dancers worked collaboratively with me in making some of the phrases . . . to NO music! Then we looked at how the nine phrases should be set within the structure of the dance. Cunningham and John Cage (a 20th century composer he collaborated with) used the idea of “I Ching” for this part of the process. I liked the underlying premise of letting go of human reasoning and planning and connecting to a belief in a universal order, an order that manifested itself without human planning. When I asked the dancers what they thought we should do one of them suggested using the number for “Pi” which, as we all know from our math classes, is a very large number indeed. We had our phrases and our order (3,1,4, etc….) so I began linking them all together. What an amazing process! The dance became something I would never have imagined as a choreographer but, astonishingly, the universe knew better.”

She made a video of the dance that those who may be interested will find on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3WnW8HpYD0&feature=youtu.be

Title: Simple Roads
Music by Jim Hegarty
 

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

I'm doing a Pi day trivia game.  I have 9 separate categories.  I post all the possible answers in the category ans remove the correct answer after each question.  In addition to learning about pi, the learn some test taking strategies like eliminating incorrect answers.  

I found this video and article about Pi Day:  http://content.jwplatform.com/previews/OZllhffT-BAmYX0uw

Here is a link to the article:  http://www.thealmanac.net/20170315/bubble_math_a_practical_pi_day_lesson_for_bethel_park_students

I like this lesson because it looks fun and the learners were learning about Pi, too!!!  Maybe something to do for next year!

Brooke