National Pi Day

March has always been a curious month, in my estimation. The saying goes that March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”, but I don’t know anybody who really believes it. The first day of spring is March 21, but the trees don’t turn green around here until April.

So March provides 31 days of meandering between semi-spring and plain old winter. “March Madness” is strictly for basketball fans. And after a lifetime of shamrocks and jigs I can’t get too excited about Saint Patrick’s Day.

Just when I was giving up on looking forward to anything this month, I became aware of a new, up-and-coming Celebration Day in March. Nothing religious, ethnic, sports or season-related. This holiday comes from an unlikely place -- the pure, tidy, lofty world of mathematics.

March 14 is National Pi Day, and I’m not talking apples, chocolate cream, or lemon meringue.

“Pi” is a mathematical term, specifically --- 22/7.

If you go ahead and divide 7 into 22, you find that it is approximately 3.14 --- thus the choice of March 14 -- (3/14 -- get it?) as the day to honor Pi.

So what is so important about 22/7 ? Glad you asked. A long time ago -- as far back as ancient Egypt -- mathematicians were trying to find a number that exactly described the relationship between the diameter (distance across) a circle, and the circumference (distance AROUND) the same circle.

To this day they haven’t found it yet -- the decimal places stretch out to infinity. But for all practical purposes, 22/7 and its abbreviated decimal equivalent -- 3.14 -- work just fine.

Some of you highly idle people may have wondered how much tubing is required for a standard Hula Hoop. Sure, you can get a tape measure and position it around the hoop. But there’s a much cooler way to figure it out.

If you measure straight ACROSS the hoop from one side to the other, and then multiply by 22/7.…Voila ! You have the exact distance around, which is called the circumference.

If the distance across the hula hoop was 35 inches, you’d multiply that times 22/7 -- and you’d get a nice even 110 inches of Hula Hoop tubing! I’ll admit it’s pretty hard to find a practical use for this info, unless you happen to be a manufacturer of Hula Hoop tubing.

But bear with me. The other great “Pi” equation is --

r  times r  times  22/7

(which is r times itself, times 22/7)

So what the heck is  r ?

If you put your finger in the middle of a circle…….say for instance a dish……the distance from your finger to the EDGE is called “r”

If that distance was 4 inches, you would multiply 4 times 4 times 22/7, which works out to roughly 50 square inches -- the AREA of the dish.

This info, substituting feet for inches, will be very helpful to you when purchasing circular real estate, although circular real estate is not too popular just yet.

If you’re still reading this essay, you’re very patient -- patient enough to consider one more thing about Pi.

As said before, 22/7 is only a good approximation of Pi, as is the decimal 3.14 -- mathematicians using computers have worked out the value of Pi to over a MILLION decimal places. In the case of a standard Hula Hoop, this would carry the accuracy way into the atomic and subatomic level.

This weird “insolvability” apparently adds to the allure of Pi (or 22/7) (or 3.1428571 etc) in the math geek universe. In fact I’ll bet there’s many other such beloved math terms, and the Numberheads would just love to load the calendar with their arcane jargon if they could.

But fear not. They’ve been very lucky with this Pi thing and they know it. They’re not going to get pushy. For National Pi Day to gain popularity is a bit of a miracle, and a shot in the arm for a month that’s weary of leprechauns and slam dunks.

A final thought, for what it’s worth: Consider the standard 14-inch pizza. The "r" is 7 inches. Multiplying 7 times 7 times 22/7 you get an area of exactly 154 square inches. Isn’t that a cool thing to know?