Call us irrational, but we love pi! March 14th is recognized by many as Pi Day in honor of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, known as pi (𝝅). As an irrational number, pi cannot be expressed as a common fraction of whole numbers and its decimal representation goes on infinitely, but many math enthusiasts nonetheless enjoy calculating pi to increasingly numerous decimal places. Try asking a computer to compute to the last digit the value of pi and it might be occupied for a while…
𝝅=3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823… (for more digits)
The United States House of Representatives has periodically introduced resolutions recognizing March 14th as National Pi Day to promote math and science education (e.g., 118 H. Res. 221, 111 H. Res. 224). In an interesting legal quirk, the Indiana General Assembly considered a bill in 1897 enshrining erroneous calculations to square the circle, which would have effectively defined pi as 3.2. The bill actually passed the Indiana House before encountering brighter minds during Senate readings.
However many decimal places you can remember, enjoy the excuse for a round treat!