Pi Day 2023: Understanding the connection between March 14 and mathematics

Pi Day: UNESCO marked Pi Day as the 'International Day of Mathematics' during the general conference in 2019

Pi Day is celebrated globally every year on March 14 to recognise the famous mathematical constant. This is because the date looks like 3/14 if one writes it in the month/day format. Pi's approximate value is 3.14.

Mathematically, Pi is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. It plays an important constant in finding out the area of a circle.

The symbol was first used in 1706 by William Jones.

According to piday.org, Pi has been calculated to be over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.

"As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. Pi's infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorise, and to computationally calculate more and more digits," it says.

Mathematician Archimedes used polygons with many sides to approximate circles and determined that Pi was approximately 22/7.

The use of Pi became popular after it was adopted by the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler in 1737.

History of Pi Day

Physicist Larry Shaw first recognised Pi Day in 1988. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives officially designated March 14 as Pi Day. Later, UNESCO marked Pi Day as the "International Day of Mathematics" during its general conference in 2019.

Interestingly, Mathematician and Physicist Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day in 1879.

How is Pi Day celebrated?

Pi Day is celebrated globally every year through Pi recital competitions and Pi Day workouts to stimulate interest in learning and practising mathematics.