It was 21 years ago when a group of eccentric math and science fans first gathered in San Francisco's distinctive science museum, the Exploratorium, to celebrate the first Pi Day.
To math heads, any day that's written down as 3/14 reminds them of the mathematical concept Pi, the number of times the diameter of a circle fits around its circumference. Back in our school, they used to tell us it was roughly equivalent to 22 divided by 7--but real math heads don't buy that for a minute.
Nope, they measure circles instead. And if you're not too precise about it, you get roughly 3.14 diameters to a circumference. 3.14...hey...that's only one bit of punctuation away from being 3/14...March 14th!
At the Exploratorium, the crowds gather at one o'clock on Pi Day, counting down to Pi Minute, 1:59, so named because Pi calculated to five decimal places is 3.14159.
When Pi Minute arrives, they all sing Happy Birthday to a great but crazy scientist they all revere, Albert Einstein, who was born on Pi Day, 1879.
If they time things right, they could get the song done in 25 seconds, and get to cheer at Pi Second, which is 26 or 27 seconds later. (That's because Pi calculated to seven decimal places is 3.1415926 and to eight decimal places is 3.14159265--so it depends if you're rounding up or rounding down from 5).
Yes, this is all a bit geeky, but you can't knock the appeal of the next bit--they all chow down on slices of pie. In recent years, pizza pie has been considered acceptable. Calories and grams of carbohydrate...that's our kind of math!
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