Yesterday was the 22nd of July – 22/7 – also everybody’s favourite approximation of the irrational number π or Pi.
Incidentally, the 14th of March this year was 3/14/15 and these digits correspond exactly to π’s first 5 digits. That was International Pi Day, and for good reason.
In Singapore, however, we write our dates in Day/Month/Year. Because the 3/14 date wouldn’t make much sense here (unless we invent the month of Duodecimber – never mind), 22/7 is completely intuitive and is a salute to our days in primary school when we first learnt Pi’s handy approximation in Maths lessons.
Our friends who use ALT Codes to enter tricky mathematical characters would already know this – the ALT Code for π is ALT-227! Try it: hold the ALT key down and type 227 – you get a quick taste of π!
Wolfram MathWorld tells us that π can also be expressed as other ways like 333/106, 355/113 or even the rather cute ∛31. That’s the cube root of 31 (in case the symbol is illegible).
Do people really celebrate Pi (or its approximation) Day? They do.
One obvious way: Pie on Pi Day! Mathematics never tasted so good!
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