Thursday, March 14, 2019

Three on Thursday


Joining Carole and friends for Three on Thursday, today with three things about pi. Today is Pi Day 3/14, and even if you don't care about it mathematically, it's a great reason to eat pie. While you're having a slice (apple, cherry, peach or pizza), consider these three things.

  • Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, or


         This isn't exactly exciting, but if you consider that this ratio is a constant, whatever the size of the circle, that is a little more                            interesting. The usual approximation for pi is 3.14159.
  • Pi is also an irrational number. In math, that means it can't be written as the ratio of two integers, and it has an infinite number of digits.
  • What the heck is it used for? Well, NASA uses it to calculate trajectories, determine the size of craters, and figure out the volume of fuel tanks and see out how much propellant a spacecraft has. Another important practical application is in signal processing. A fundamental operation here is the Fourier transform, which converts a signal to a frequency spectrum. Your cell phone does a Fourier transform when it communicates with the local cell tower.
My favorite mathematician (Ryan) thinks that we should really be celebrating e, mathematical constant that is the base of the natural logarithm (the unique number whose natural logarithm is equal to one). Its approximation is 2.71828, so I suppose it could be celebrated on February 7th in the US, but without something delicious to eat associated with it, it's never going to measure up to Pi(e) Day. 

Head on over to Carole's for more Three on Thursday thoughts.

18 comments:

  1. Happy pi day! I clearly failed this year because I forgot about it and didn't make any plans to have pie today.

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  2. Ooo! All the maths! And, pies! :)

    Also, today is Einstein's 140th birthday!

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  3. I hate to admit it, but it's all Greek to me! A math wizard, I am NOT. But I am happy to celebrate Pi day. I hope you have a logical and happy Pi/Pie day, Bonny.

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  4. I knew you would have something interesting to say about pi!

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  5. I was counting on seeing your Pi plate today! Hoping Fletch picks up a pie while he is out and about today...I'd like to have a piece in front of the fire we are planning to have in the fire pit tonight!

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  6. Happy Pi Day! Also Greek to me but I think a piece of pizza pie may be in order today! And Ryan must be enjoying a snow day possibly? I guess Denver is virtually shut down!

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  7. Nope --- Pi(e) day for the win.

    Pi ALSO tells you whether you are going to WIN that game of yarn chicken.

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  8. Happy Pi/Pie Day! My Dad memorized many of the numbers after the decimal point of pi and would torment us when we were kids by reciting them...endlessly!

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    1. That sounds like an accomplishment for your dad, but not appreciated so much by his kids!

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  9. No pie for me today, either. But Tom uses Pi surprisingly often. (I'm always amazed at that.) Enjoy your Pie/Pi. XO

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  10. not only am I celebrating pi day I am celebrating my nephew's birthday today! how lucky is he???

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  11. I told my husband about E day. He is a math fan 😉. There is pie on our menu tonight

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  12. yeah, e just doesn't have the appeal that pi does ;-) (sorry, Ryan) ... the pie looks delicious!

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  13. I like pi and pie on my birthday!! :)

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  14. Isn't calculating pi used to figure the speed of computer processors?

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  15. Thanks for the review of my very rusty Math skills. I didn't make pie but my grandsons have been making pies.

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