Pi Day Celebrates 300 Years!

As mathematicians are celebrating today, March 14th, as "pi day" (3.14--get it?), let's remind everyone about the problems with this complex number from a previous post:

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. � NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legistature narrowly passed a law yesterday redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee Lawson (R, Crossville).... "We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three."

Almost prophetic, it was 300 years ago this year, in 1706, that the Greek letter pi was first introduced to represent this number used primarily to compute the area of pizzas. Furthermore, 300 years divisible by the traditional pi value of 3 equals 100, which is a perfect score. Does this now make sense?

Anyway, go here to send your dearest friends a Happy Pi Day card. Enjoy the parades and festivities.