posted by
janrinok
on Saturday March 14 2015, @09:11AM
from the 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 dept.
from the 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286 dept.
Today (14 March) is the day the world celebrates π. http://www.piday.org/
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kell on Saturday March 14 2015, @09:49AM
Me, I'm waiting for July 22: Pi approximation day.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by E_NOENT on Saturday March 14 2015, @09:55AM
Since 3/14 is "orthodox pi day" I wonder if there's a good name for 7-22, like "reformed PI day" or something?
That being said, the whole thing lost its lustre when the HR suits at my company latched onto PI day and turned it into some uncomfortable pseudo morale booster.
"Hey, these engineers like math; let's feed them pie and yuk yuk yuk about it for days."
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:06PM
To really geek. In 3 months and 14 days is Tau Day Tau is 2 Pi. So they all get two pies on that day!
http://www.tauday.com/ [tauday.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @02:19PM
http://www.tauday.com/ [tauday.com]
Yea for this link which includes Vi Hart's delicious "Pi Is (still) Wrong" video.
(Score: 2) by E_NOENT on Sunday March 15 2015, @10:19AM
"Tau will have its revenge on June 28, 2031" -- awesome!
I'm not in the business... I *am* the business.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday March 15 2015, @05:28AM
I feel like a failure. I knew it was pi day, but I didn't get the '15' part until the local news hottie said this year was special because of 3/14/15.
Then again, if you asked local news hottie what pi was she'd say "some number in math"
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Informative) by WizardFusion on Saturday March 14 2015, @10:01AM
No, it should read..
(Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday March 14 2015, @11:06AM
Wrong. Ish.
It's equally pi day in the objectively most awesome date format, (year)-month-day.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:24PM
It is not just awesome, but also ISO standard [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Funny) by Geezer on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:56PM
Yeah, those stupid Murkins with their ignorant non-EU support of yr/mon/day format, ISO, and IEEE. We'd be much better off if we adopted British cooking, Italian efficiency, French politeness, and German humor.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday March 14 2015, @02:39PM
Yes. But let them keep American racial harmony, local business development, peaceful dispute resolution, enlightened social ethic and sense of humble coexistence.
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 5, Informative) by DNied on Saturday March 14 2015, @10:06AM
This numeric pun only works for the USA date format (Month/Day) which, personally, I find truly awful (no offense). So, hardly "the world".
(Score: 5, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday March 14 2015, @11:08AM
Month/day is a perfectly cromulent date format. It's where they put the year that screws it up. As any programmer knows, year-month-day is the best date format, so it's still pi day (you have to ignore the year for both versions to work, really).
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Informative) by Kunasou on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:01PM
Still pi day when using the ISO8601: 2015-03-14T14:00:01+01:00
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DNied on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:06PM
Provided you 0-pad months <10, or sorting will be messed up. I'd be OK with 03/14, but it doesn't really work as a Pi lookalike.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 14 2015, @04:21PM
Yes. It's perfectly clear that pi day will happen once next millenium,
on 3141-5-9, i.e., May 9, 3141 AD.
Unless, perhaps, we've finally seen the light and gone duodecimal by then.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Saturday March 14 2015, @05:30PM
Exactly, which is why I wished my US friends a happy American Pi day, and a happy regular pi day for everyone else
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @07:31PM
Don McLean "Bye, bye, Miss America Pie. Drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2015, @12:01AM
As any programmer knows, year-month-day is the best date format, so it's still pi day
Poser. The best date format is clearly "unsigned long long".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:43PM
Well, we could hold it every second February or standardise all dates on CCYY-MM-DD
I prefer holding it on the 22nd of July ...
(Score: 5, Informative) by AnonTechie on Saturday March 14 2015, @10:08AM
Make sure to note when the date and time spell out the first 10 digits of pi: 3.141592653. On 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m., it is literally the most perfectly "pi" time of the century.
http://phys.org/news/2015-03-pi-day-scientists.html [phys.org]
Infographic: Pi in the Sky 2: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/education/index.cfm?page=430 [nasa.gov]
Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
(Score: 2) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Saturday March 14 2015, @02:42PM
Look! When we apply numerical abstractions to two conceptually unrelated conditions, they have an occasional coincidence!
Let's celebrate!
You're betting on the pantomime horse...
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Saturday March 14 2015, @09:53PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @03:01PM
On 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m., it is literally the most perfectly "pi" time of each century.
FTFY. Your date representation didn't *have* a century. And since the month cannot be 14 or 15, I'm assuming your format means // or // neither of which are easily sortable.
Your 09:26:53Z UTC time is fine though.
I like ISO 8601.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday March 14 2015, @04:27PM
There's another one at 9:26:53 p.m!
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Saturday March 14 2015, @05:24PM
You mean 21:26? Not really.
Like YYYYMMDD date format, 24 hour time format is just good sense.
(Score: 1) by deadstick on Saturday March 14 2015, @04:29PM
Should be 9:26:54. The next digit is a 5, so the "round-to-even" rule applies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @10:15AM
Then the nonmathematical geeks get their day.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday March 14 2015, @11:43AM
I prefer christmas a week later
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @11:46AM
Don't you mean October 23 at exactly 6:02?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cmn32480 on Saturday March 14 2015, @11:57AM
How did I miss Avogadro's Number day all these years????
I think I will celebrate that this year and laugh at all the people in my office going "WTF IS HE TALKING ABOUT????"
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 1) by J.J. Dane on Saturday March 14 2015, @12:27PM
March 14th is the official Steak and BJ day, of course..
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Steak+and+Blowjob+Day [urbandictionary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:41PM
What day isn't?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @08:15PM
Any day during Women's History Month. Then every day is Steak and Cunnilingus Day.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @12:38PM
Someone should just give this story a raspberry
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:26PM
3/14/15 9:26
Eat it, chumps!
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:46PM
I see a time zone error in your calculations.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:58PM
Nope. Pies were invented in the east coast USA, by the Lenape tribe [wikipedia.org].
That historical fact is recorded on the Internet. (in this very post, in fact, so you don't have far too look)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @01:31PM
You can, starting now [mit.edu]
(Score: 2) by carguy on Saturday March 14 2015, @02:07PM
fence posting error?
"...whether or not we were able to offer you a spot in MIT's class of 2019."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 14 2015, @03:34PM
I guess I didn't get in :)
(Score: 5, Interesting) by martyb on Saturday March 14 2015, @03:06PM
To put things in perspective, let's assume that the Planck Length [wikipedia.org] is approximately 1.616199x10E-35 m and that the diameter of the observable universe [wikipedia.org] is approximately 8.8×10E26 m.
That suggests that one needs no more than 61 significant digits of PI to calculate the circumference of the universe with an accuracy of a single Planck length. I could be off by a digit or so there (it's been a long time since I worked with sig figs!)
Anecdote:
When I got to college, I discovered that my having memorized pi to 40 decimal places after the decimal point was outdone by my dorm-mate (Hi Rob!) who had it memorized to 50 decimal places. That was *unacceptable*.
The battle was on!
I went to the library, found a book containing the digits of pi out to some huge number of decimal places and copied the first few hundred digits. I then committed the first 60 places to memory and revealed that to Rob. Now it was *his* turn.
In short order, he memorized it to 65 places! Now it was my turn. Back and forth it went with each of us trading the lead. Part way into the second semester, we called a truce when we'd each memorized pi to 200 decimal places!
Hmmm, I wonder how much of it I still remember? 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647 — looks like I remember only 120 decimal places, now.
Anyway, the point was that we could have stopped at 70 places and had *far* more than was needed for any [in]conceivable application in the observable universe. It was then that I realized just how amazingly large some of the numbers bandied about in my astronomy courses really were. For a visual perspective on this, I'd suggest looking at Scale of the Universe [htwins.net] (flash required) or the updated version at: Scale of the Universe 2 [htwins.net].
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday March 14 2015, @05:56PM
The TriMet MAX Light Rail goes through a tunnel underneath the Portland, Oregon Zoo, with a station there.
Pi is carved into granite in the wall there, to roughly 80 places. From the tenth digit on, it is incorrect.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2015, @02:13AM