For those of us in the US, today’s date is a little bit special. For once, the…unusual way of writing the day has paid off, and now it’s Happy Pi Day! You don’t need to be a math enthusiast to recognize this day, but it may help. For anyone looking to get involved, we have some Pi Day facts and history, as well as some jokes to lighten the mood.
It might not be your favorite pie, but it deserves some recognition nonetheless. Plus, there are no rules saying that Pi Day can’t be celebrated with a slice of apple pie too! If you’re new to the day or want a refresher on how it came to be, then we’re your one-stop shop for everything Pi Day!
The Pi Day History
Before going on to the jokes, let’s learn a little bit about the day and how it came about. As they say, every day is a learning day and you can be rewarded with some laughs after!
Beginning back in 1988, American Physicist Larry Shaw, known as the Prince of Pi, in San Fransisco. He wanted the day to celebrate the number, but also just math in general! Obviously, March 3 was chosen as the numerical date is 3.14, the first three digits of Pi. However, it is also the birthday of Albert Einstein, so even more reasons to celebrate!
According to the Pi Day site, the day is for reciting Pi, talking about Pi, and eating pie! It’s also a celebration of everything fun, strange, and complex about math, whilst encouraging positions in STEM, particularly for those underrepresented.
In 2009, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution to recognize Pi Day.
5 Facts About Pi To Celebrate The Day
We apologize to all the math enthusiasts who will probably sigh at the following facts because they already know the, However, for those who want to learn a little more, then these Pi facts are just for you.
- Pi has not always been called that. Before the 1700s, it actually went by the name ‘the quantity which when the diameter is multiplied by it, yields the circumference.” It wasn’t until 1706 when Welsh mathematician William Jones started using the Greek symbol we all know today.
- More than 22 trillion digits of Pi have been calculated, but we will never know all the digits. Pi is an irrational number, meaning it goes on and on and on. However, a Swiss scientist calculated it to 22 trillion decimal places in 2017, a feat that took 100 days.
- The record for reciting the highest number of digits in Pi is held by Rajveer Meena in 2015. Rajveer was able to recite the first 70,000 decimal places which took him 10,000 hours. For legitimacy, he had to wear a blindfold the whole time!
- Even though Pi is infinite, there is never a sequence of 123456 in its first million decimal places.
- Calculating Pi is a stress test for computers. It figures out the activity within the internals of the computer, a bit like a cardiogram for a person!
Happy Pi Day Jokes
If this was all you were here for, then we hope you’ve learned something interesting along the way! Here are some Happy Pi Day jokes to round off our recognition of the day.
The perfect excuse to eat some pie!
This is so bad that it might actually be good.
Hopefully not for 100 days…
Not even this could stop us from getting another slice of pie.
Just think about the amount of pie you could eat if this was true.
Ba dum tish.
Not even a selfie stick can help with that…
Whether you’re celebrating math or eating copious amounts of pie, we hope you enjoy Happy Pi Day!