WATCH ABOVE: In celebration of Pi Day, the Global News crew was challenged to memorize as many digits of Pi as possible.
TORONTO — On Saturday morning at 9:26 a.m. get ready to celebrate the most epic Pi Day you’ll ever encounter.
What is Pi Day, you ask? It’s March 14 — 3.14. Get it? No? Think back to math class: it’s the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
So what’s the big deal?
Pi is a pretty cool number, and not just for number-crunchers. It turns out that there is no end to it, insofar as we know. It’s been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond the decimal point. And get this: there is no repetition or pattern to the numbers.
But this year is particularly special as it is March 14, 2015, or, as those who celebrate Pi would say, 3.1415.
But wait: it gets better.
At 9:26:53 a.m., we will see the first 10 numbers of Pi. It’s a once in a lifetime event.
Here’s just a slice of Pi:
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419
7169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825
3421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253
5940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493
0381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201
The idea of celebrating Pi was organized by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988. It even has governmental backing. On March 12, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution recognizing March 14 as National Pi Day.
Pi isn’t just about circles: it can be found throughout physics and nature. It occurs in mathematics problems that calculate the lengths of arcs and the areas of curved surfaces like the discs of the sun and moon and even waves and ripples.
So while it may not be a national holiday, it’s still a pretty epic day to celebrate. And maybe you could even mark the day with a nice piece of pie.
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