Happy Pi Day

Yes, "Pi" is the same number you read about in your math textbooks at school. For those who can't remember what on earth it was, let me refresh their memories. Ahem Ahem... The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is constant for all circles, and the constant is called Pi which approximates to 3.14, if we consider two decimal places.

Pi Day is a fun and unofficial holiday celebrated on March 14 by math lovers around the world. Why March 14? March corresponds to 3 (third month) of course, and so 14th March can be thought of as 3.14. Well actually, the story goes further than this. People usually convey their wishes at 1:59 pm on 14th March, as the decimal representation of Pi is like 3.14159...

Math lovers (mostly in universities) celebrate this day by getting together and discussing about the history of the "loved" number, having contests to see how many digits of Pi one has memorized, and eating pies, of course.

Now shifting to a serious mathematical note, the number "Pi" has been shown to have multiple interesting properties. Two of those are as follows :

• It is an irrational number, which means it cannot be written as a ratio of two integers (a close approximation is 22/7).

• It is a transcendental number too, which means there does not exist a non-zero polynomial with rational coefficients that has Pi as a root.

A widely believed conjecture related to Pi is that it is a normal number. A normal number is a real number whose representation in any base has digits (or whatever they are called in some base) in a uniform distribution. In other words, any substring of digits is equally likely to occur in the representation of Pi. If you think more about this, then you can surely arrive at this hilarious conclusion.

So folks, here's to you wishing a Happy Pi Day !!!

PS :
(1) July 22 is celebrated as Pi Approximation Day (Think 22/7).
(2) Not sure if its a coincidence :), but March 14 is Einstein's birthday.