Pi Day for the common man

I do my best to celebrate every holiday that comes my way. Today is March 14th otherwise known in some circles as Pi Day. The number Pi being 3.1415.... and today on the calendar is 3/14 or 3.14.

It's easy to think of math as nerdy because most of us don't use it. The biggest math problem the average person deals with is figuring out the amount for a 20% tip  at a restaurant. But all the other things we don't think about, like the technology and engineering that makes modern life possible is based on the relationships of numbers.

One of my sons is finishing up his Bachelors at an engineering college. He's very comfortable in social settings, he mixes well with people that have different interests than him -but when he's in a group of people where he can "get his nerd on", well you can guess that's like. Even if I can't understand conversation -I like nerds. They are people with a passion and they are willing to delve into that passion as deep as they can possibly go. It doesn't matter if it's astrophysicist, history, French cooking, car racing or memorizing every blues song ever written, they are equally nerdy.

An old college classmate many years ago wrote my son a letter comparing mathematics to poetry. It was beautiful letter, though now lost. Both math and poetry can take places that you physically can not go. I sat in on a lecture on supernova stars. The professor explain step by step the mathematical model of how lighter atoms are crushed into heavier atoms and the whole process maintains the laws of thermodynamics. The elegance of understanding the creation heavy elements would be impossible without the math. 

Pi is an irrational number just like the square root of 2. Neither Pi or the square root of 2 equals an exact number, there are  approximate values but there always remains a tiny error that will never go away. It's like a division problem that always has a remainder or a fraction that never ends.

When the square root of 2 was discovered to be an irrational number by the ancient Greeks, the philosophers celebrated with a 100 sacrificed oxen, wine and three days of partying. The concept of irrational numbers meant that universe could not be explain solely by numbers.

The mathematicians were not happy. Pythagoras and his students believed every conceivable number could be expressed as a ratio. They tried real hard to find two equal numbers when by each other would have the exact sum of 2.

Proof that the square root of 2 irrational was attributed to Hippasus of Metapontum a student of Pythagoras. This maybe an academic legend but supposedly Pythagoras and his students were at sea at the time and Pythagoras threw Hippasus overboard to drown because Hippasus produced an example where an answer to a problem could not be reduced to a whole number or ratio. Which just goes to show you math isn't so sedate.

 

That story probably isn't  true. Long before the square of 2 was an issue  there was the question of Pi. Pi as you might remember from middle school is the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. For most practical purposes  the fraction 22 / 7 can be used which is 3.14285 but it's still slightly off and for really accurate measurements not good enough. Also it just drove some people nuts there isn't an exact value for Pi.

Pi had been an elusive mystery of the civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and India hundreds of years before Pythagoras. And each estimate was within 1% of today's accepted value. With modern computers Pi has been calculated out to over 10 trillion digits and the number still goes on. I've been told you calculate the circumference of the visible universe with that value of Pi and have a margin of error less than the width of a uranium atom. These days Pi accurate to ten trillion decimal places is used to test super computers.

For all the believers in flying saucers and ancient astronauts, several writers like Zecharia Sitchin who point out the Great Pyramid of Giza was built with a perimeter of 1760 cubits and a height of 280 cubits. When you do the math you get 1760 / 280 = 6.2857  or just a hair over 2 times Pi. Some people like to point this out as evidence of contact with space aliens. Others claim it's only coincidence.

Pi Day has been used by the science, engineering and computer students as a good excuse to have an outrageous spring break party. It was once good enough for the ancient Greeks to let the wine flow and commemorate the thrill of  discovery.

After the party there will be plenty of work tomorrow. I know in my own country math isn't really give the attention it deserves. One story that comes to mind is when my son first started in college. He met a female freshman from Singapore, they became quick friends. I guess my son wanted to impress her and when they were talking about computer programming, he bragged about some of the advanced math classes he took in high school. She laughed and told him those were the normal math classes in Singapore. The experience was a little deflating but it didn't hurt their friendship.

So it's Pi Day -let's get irrational.