Thursday, March 10, 2011

Columbia Virtual Academy Blog

Festa del Pi Greek! Infinitely

More than twenty years now, on the initiative of ' Exploratorium in San Francisco, mathematicians and enthusiasts around the world celebrate the day of the Pi Greek, English Pi Day!

What are we talking about?

Obviously one of the world's most famous numbers, one of the few that deserves even a Greek letter to represent:

π = 3.14159 ...

And then his day can only be March 14, in the Anglo-Saxon notation 3 / 14 or 3.14, greek approximate more exactly the first two decimal places!

But why the greek pi is so special?
Even the ancients were aware that, given a circle of any size, the ratio between the length of its circumference C and the length of its diameter d is always constant and that is exactly:

C / d = π = 3.14159 ...

The most curious thing is that, although it is defined by the geometric relationship between two variables, pi is a greek irrational number, which can not be expressed by a fraction (ie a ratio of two integers). Therefore has infinite non-periodic decimal places ...

But there is another detail that makes the anniversaries of March 14, even more interesting: The date coincides with the birthday of Albert Einstein , born in Ulm in Germany its March 14, 1879!

In 2009, President Obama officially recognized in the United States on March 14 as a day dedicated to celebrating the most institutionally greek schools, universities and scientific institutions, as an opportunity for informal "encourage young people to study math." The

page the Politecnico di Torino, which also contains a bit 'history and numerous interesting (in Italian).

The page from Wikipedia (in Italian) at day pi greek and greek more.

The page Pi Day Exploratorium in San Francisco (in English).

The official page of the Pi Day (in English).

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