A couple weeks ago, I noticed that I was approaching post Number 100. Trying to figure out what I could do to celebrate that milestone, nothing special was coming to mind. Talking with my friend Betsy (check out her blog, What Betsy Bakes) we came up with several ideas but none felt right. Instead, I realized that I’ve geeked out here a few times about physics and engineering, but never really about math. Having studies math (and physics) at university, this seems like an oversight, so for post number 100, here’s a small sample of my math nerdiness.
Anyone who enjoys math must know that last weekend was a very important day. It was Pi Day! This celebration started in the late 1980’s at the Exploratorium in San Fransisco and is observed on March 14 each year (3-14 as long as you write the month first, which may not make sense, but works out well in this case). This year was an extra special Pi Day because not only was it 3-14, but at 9:26:53am we had the first 9 digits of pi aligned. It was very exciting! We had a party.
I have been fascinated by pi since learning about it in sixth grade. In high school, I started to memorize pi. In college I wrote a computer program to calculate pi. I’ve even decided that if/when I get my first tattoo, pi will feature in it. So yeah, I was excited about Pi Day 2015.
We gathered at a friend’s house at 9:00 so we would be ready when 9:26:53.5 came around. We recited pi as far as anyone knew it. For most people this was 3.1415926. I showed off what I remembered from high school which was about 45 digits. Then we toasted with coffee and mimosas, then dug into the pies everyone brought over.
It was a fun gathering and a nice way to celebrate the joy of math. For anyone interested, the rest of the tattoo would be of Euler’s Identity (despite the spelling, it’s pronounced Oiler’s. Knowing this gets you serious math cred).
So, how did you celebrate Pi Day or your 100th post?
A Runner's Ramblings 
I haven’t celebrated either yet……..must rectify this! What kind of pies were there?
There’s still time to celebrate. As long as you’re offering pie, people seem happy to celebrate pi any time of year. 😉
We had four pies: an apple, pecan, strawberry-rhubarb and coconut-cream. Plus one quiche to help us stretch what we meant by pie.
So, Pi day aside, Woody, when I started to read your “post” and you said “approaching my 100th post” I was being so literal (try concretely literal) I was thinking “He’s running past a post marked 100? 100 miles? He’s not THAT nuts, is he?”. Glad you aren’t and I’ll try harder to read the writing for what it means…
Not yet… I keep trying to figure out when I could do a 100 mile race. Not sure which will happen first, a 100 miler or the tattoo, but both are likely at some point. Do you want to train for it with me?
About that tattoo…..A friend has one that says “Love You, Mom” in her Mother’s handwriting. Maybe that would be nice. 🙂
I’ll put that in the definite maybe pile for tattoo ideas, but it doesn’t sounds like the sort of thing my mom would like… granted, you know her better than I do. 🙂
As my eight year old nephew pointed out, the last digit should be 4 as the three is followed by a 5 so you should round up rather than truncate. 🙂
Can’t argue with that. I wanted to celebrate at 9:26:53.589793 so we wouldn’t have to worry about rounding versus truncating, but alas, no one’s watch was that accurate.
And kudos the your nephew. Any eight year old catching my math mistakes has my respect.