Happy Pi Day 2013!
In honor of Pi Day, March 14, here are Math Dude’s two fun facts about pi!
Jason Marshall, PhD
It’s March 14, which means it’s pi day! Yeah, party time!
So, what’s all the fuss about? Well, every March 14 people around the world (although mostly just on the Internet) join together to celebrate the deliciousness of everybody’s favorite mathematical constant, pi.
Why March 14? Because pi is approximately equal to 3.14…hence 3/14…hence March 14. To celebrate, here are 2 fun facts about pi for you to share at all those pi parties you’re going to tonight:
Pi Fun Fact #1
The first fun fact is also quite handy. It’s used by astronomers (myself included) all the time to make estimates. The trick is to know that there are roughly pi*10-million seconds in a year. In other words, the number 3.14 times 10-million is pretty close to the number of seconds that you age each and every trip around the Sun. Of course, that’s not the precise number. If you work it out, you’ll find that there are actually 31,536,000 seconds in a year. But pi*10-million is usually good enough…and it’s certainly a lot easier to remember.
Pi Fun Fact #2
The second fun fact is that pi seconds is about 1 nanocentury. In other words, 3.14 seconds is about 1-billionth of a century. If you want to get all particular, the actual number of seconds in a nanocentury is 3.154; but that’s pretty close to pi. Of course, this is a rather ridiculous number. After all, it’s crazy to measure relatively tiny things in terms of comparatively great big things. It’s like saying that 1 kilometer is approximately the same length as 1/5-the-nano-distance-between-the-Sun-and-Pluto. That’s just nuts, right?
But if we turn this relationship upside down, we come up with a number that’s most certainly not crazy. In particular, by inverting this relationship we find that if you’re lucky enough to live for a century, your lifetime will have spanned about pi-billion seconds. That’s a lot of seconds…sort of. I mean, it’s comforting to know that human lifetimes are measured in billions (and not millions) of seconds, but trillions (or quadrillions) would be nice. Which is a good reminder to make as many of those however many billions of seconds count.
Happy pi day, 2013!
About the Author
Jason Marshall is the author of The Math Dude’s Quick and Dirty Guide to Algebra. He provides clear explanations of math terms and principles, and his simple tricks for solving basic algebra problems will have even the most math-phobic person looking forward to working out whatever math problem comes their way.