WIL WHEATON dot NET

50,000 Monkeys at 50,000 Typewriters Can't Be Wrong

happy pi day, my darling mathletes!

  • WWdN in Exile

I wrote this in 2004:

This morning over breakfast, I said to my wife, "Happy π day!"

"Happy pie day? What the hell are you talking about?"

"No, not 'pie'," I said. "'π'."

"Not 'pie,' but 'pie.'" She was clearly not amused. "Isn't it a little early to be drinking?"

"Anne, look at the date on the calendar."

"Yes it's march 14th, and you're going to watch WrestleMania dos equis* with your brother." She frowned. "Are you trying to tell me that you're taking a pie to Jeremy's house? Because if you expect me to make you a pie . . ."

"No, I don't expect you to make me a pie." I said, well into that area where you've explained the joke so much, it's never going to be funny.

"Today is March fourteenth. That makes it 3.14 on the calendar. 3.14 is also known as π."

She blinked a few times.

"Oh. It's π day."

"Yes!" I said. "And at 1:59 pm, it will be even more π day. Isn't that cool!?"

She took a long, thoughtful drink from her coffee mug, carefully set it down and said, "You are such a nerd."

And to commemorate pi day in 2009:

I present this incredibly awesome song by my friend Chris Hardwick:

 

This year … well, I got nothin'. Except maybe … maybe we could use today's date as an excuse to talk about math with kids!

Yeah! Check this out: When I think back on my years in school, I realize that math wasn't hard, math was just boring. Until I got into high school and started solving equations in algebra, which were framed as puzzles for me to solve, math was always framed as this collection of facts that we just had to know by rote, because … well, nobody really knows why, we just do it and stop asking so many questions you damn troublemaking kid.

Maybe we could use today's date, 3.14, and its relation to π as an opportunity to show kids how numbers and mathematics are all around us all the time, like a secret language or something fun like that.

…or you could just watch the video Chris and Mike made and leave it at that. I'm not the boss of you.

Edited to add: Over at Geek Mom, they're doing a ton of fun math stuff for kids today that's all pi-centric. I highly recommend taking a look.

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14 March, 2011 Wil

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#whiskyface is proof that the fsm loves us and wants us to be happy → ← HUNTER is in the Kindle Store for 99 cents

40 thoughts on “happy pi day, my darling mathletes!”

  1. Jennywilliams says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:35 am

    Also check out http://www.geekmom.com today. We’ve got a bunch of Pi Day posts! Moms love their pie and their pi.

  2. Carriebradshawisfullofit.blogspot.com says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:36 am

    I totally did the same thing this morning at work! I yelled, “HAPPY PI DAY!” and people asked, “Are you craving pie or something?”
    Silly, silly airheads!
    Thanks for sharing in the same dorky humor.

  3. beth9133 says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:41 am

    I teach 7th grade math and pi day always falls during spring break, so i told my students to enjoy some pizza pi or apple pi, but be sure to avoid the cow pi. They were only slightly amused.

  4. SusieKline says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:42 am

    My 12yo is having a pi day celebration at school. They are eating pie, drew pi plates, and the kid who can recite the longest pi string gets a prize.
    I didn’t know about pi day until just a few years ago. I’m 44. My teachers really missed out on making math fun. Well, more fun than Fr. Harvey’s chalk-covered priest clothes…
    xo Susie

  5. VialOfDreams says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Happy Pi day to you too! Theoretically, it is also “pie” day, considering pies are circular.
    [1:59pm OR 15:9 and 26 millisec (3pm, 9 seconds and 26 milliseconds)]

  6. karohemd says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:43 am

    Too bad this joke only works in America (and other countries that use dates with the month/days reversed)…

  7. Anne Bruska says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:46 am

    Full geek will be 2015……3.1415926!!!

  8. James Doyle says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:53 am

    While I used to love Pi and Pi Day, I feel obligated to link to this video, which I found today:



    It tells how Pi is actually wrong. Not incorrect or inaccurate, just kind of a dumb constant to be using. What we should’ve been using instead is Tau, which is actually 2*pi. If I had used Tau in high school, all this circles in radians crap would’ve made some real sense, not to mention sine and cosine.
    I don’t want to ruin the whole celebration however, so I’ll also link to this video, called “Lose Yourself (in the Digits)”, which is awesome:



    So, I’ll see you all on 6/28 for Tau Day!

  9. SweetChuck says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:54 am

    “When I think back on my years in school, I realize that math wasn’t hard, math was just boring.”
    You should totally check out Vi Hart’s video’s on doodling in math class, http://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart and specifically the video she put up for π day

  10. samatwitch says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:56 am

    Happy Pi day, Wil! Thanks for your great solo panel and participation in the Guild panel at ECCC. I enjoy hearing your stories, just as I enjoy reading them here. I’m looking forward to you being back in Vancouver for “Eureka”.
    I thought you might enjoy this website about what you can do with Pi. http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110195/uses/uses.html

  11. Fallslikerain says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:56 am

    It might not be Pi Day in other countries, but according to Phil Plait, in Europe today is 14/3, which is the sum of 3 consecutive primes (43+47+53), and also of 5 consecutive primes (11+13+17+19+23+29+31).

  12. Robin Duckworth says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:56 am

    @karohemd — Ah, yes. But those of you in countries where day-month is the standard can celebrate a Pi Day of your own on 22/7. Everybody wins!
    Last year I went on a mad baking spree and made four different kinds of mini pies (baked in muffin tins, you see) for my book club and co-workers. And then my back hurt. 🙂 This year I’m recovering from PAX East and getting ready for a work trip, so if there’s pie at all it’ll be from a bakery.

  13. Erik says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Yeah, but what are we supposed to eat on Tau Day?

  14. Jeremy Wheaton says:
    14 March, 2011 at 11:58 am

    Like the Hulkster says…
    “You know what Brother? You better bring your best pie on π day Brother!”

  15. Wil says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    This is especially funny because you are, in fact, my actual brother.

  16. Jenny S. says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:01 pm

    O. M. G. I looked down at the clock as I was reading and it was 1:59!
    Awesome.

  17. Adam LaMore says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:04 pm

    2 pies.

  18. Rixie_4 says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    I took dutch apple pies in for both my daughter’s math and science teachers, and much to my surprise, they both said they had pi lessons planned for the day to celebrate.

  19. MayDay_Aura says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:20 pm

    Happy Pi Day! I had a similar conversation with my mom about Pi day, which ending with her shaking her head at me in slight confusion.

  20. Tbuonocore says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    Happy Pi Day from the Tech Support Center at Tektronix in Beaverton Oregon! We celebrate every year with a Pi recitation and a Pie Potluck. So happy to see a fellow nerds geeking it up for Einstein’s birthday. Wish you could be here (we could use some help with all the pie!).

  21. mrtl says:
    14 March, 2011 at 12:34 pm

    Why do math when you could have pie? I’m making these: http://tinyurl.com/puffypie
    Hoooray pie!

  22. Dayle Dermatis says:
    14 March, 2011 at 1:14 pm

    “WrestleMania dos equis*”
    Argh! Asteriskasperation! (Exasperation at an asterisk with no corresponding footnote.) 😉

  23. Alan says:
    14 March, 2011 at 1:54 pm

    I don’t agree. I think having ranges from [-Pi, Pi] is more useful than [-Tau/2, Tau/2].
    But charge should definately have been defined in a way to make electrons positive.

  24. James Doyle says:
    14 March, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    I can see your point about [-Pi, Pi], but I feel like I was always taught [0, 2Pi], so as the video described, made things like a quarter circle being Pi/2 (did I do that right? See, I still don’t get it!). I feel like I would’ve gotten a clearer grasp of radians if a quarter circle had been Tau/4.
    And Euler’s Identity is just icing on the cake. Or whipped cream on the Tau (which is 2 Pies).

  25. darth muffing says:
    14 March, 2011 at 3:13 pm

    THIS REMIND ME!!!! If you haven’t discovered Vi Hart yet, you’re totally missing out. She calls herself a recreational mathemusician, and she makes incredibly entertaining and informative math videos on YouTube about mobius strips and triangles. She makes math fun. You can’t call yourself a geek and not watch her videos!
    Ok, you can. But she is brilliantly fun.
    http://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart

  26. Alex Pope says:
    14 March, 2011 at 3:49 pm

    Or like what the Macho Man used to say:
    “Oooh, yeah!! The Macho Man, Randy Savage, can’t wait for Wrestlemania so he getcha in the square-circle and π ya down to size! Yeah!”
    Or maybe you’re thinking that the Hitman’s really full name was Bret Hart πs? Or about Austin 3.14? Or perhaps smelling what the Rock is baking?
    Nevermind… 😉

  27. Alex Pope says:
    14 March, 2011 at 3:57 pm

    Yaknow, with Star Wars Day, and π Day, and Int’l Talk Like a Pirate Day, you’d think there’d be a Geek calender around somewhere… I found this: but it’s incomplete and several years old.
    Any more complete, current ones out there for us poor geeks?

  28. kendiara says:
    14 March, 2011 at 4:05 pm

    It is also SBJ day for those of us that hate math 🙂 Which could be why is connected to pi. After Steak and a BJ pi is a nice dessert.

  29. Melissa Wiley says:
    14 March, 2011 at 4:09 pm

    “Maybe we could use today’s date, 3.14, and its relation to π as an opportunity to show kids how numbers and mathematics are all around us all the time, like a secret language or something fun like that.”
    Loads of good links aiming to do exactly that at Julie Brennan’s Living Math site.
    As for Pi Day, my gang is celebrating with pizza.

  30. Mrscoderoni says:
    14 March, 2011 at 4:13 pm

    I couldn’t excite my awesome geek daughter about math, at all, until I got her copies of Danica McKellar’s (Winnie from The Wonder Years) books relating Algebra problems to shopping at the mall and boys lol.

  31. Freeman says:
    14 March, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    Happy “Moon Pi” day. So chocolaty and marshmallowy.

  32. Harutake says:
    14 March, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    You appear to have an unresolved asterisk there, friend (which, thankfully, isn’t nearly as bad as an unmatched left parenthesis http://xkcd.com/859/)

  33. CIB Miller says:
    14 March, 2011 at 8:59 pm

    BAHAHA!!! I love reading amazing nerd-geek-people’s blogs! Happy Pi day!! And you’re awesome Wil! Thanks for sharing you’re amazingness with the world through your blog and other such things! 😀

  34. Hdibner says:
    15 March, 2011 at 12:26 am

    During an all-night art session in college, we listened to this song on repeat for several hours on end. In consequence, I can sing π to over 30 digits. I feel like that’s the sort of thing you’d use as a pick-up line at Genius bars.

  35. Saveroomforpi says:
    15 March, 2011 at 8:22 pm

    Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary (and we had our first dance at 1:59pm). I like number patterns and puzzles, but it also makes it so much fun, and easier, for others to remember (once we had the 3.14 calendar/pi conversation with our families).
    We received the matching think geek pi sweatshirts at the holidays and on other days my husband jumps at the chance to wear matching sweatshirts but yesterday he thought it might be overdoing it to wear matching sweatshirts with pi, to a restaurant named pi (a pizza place in St Louis), on pi day. Silly husband.

  36. Ninja Pigeon says:
    15 March, 2011 at 10:58 pm

    I’m also a geek and proud to support your efforts, but this joke was honestly better on January 4th @ 1:59am… back in 2003.
    Just saying. =)

  37. vark says:
    16 March, 2011 at 7:22 am

    Pi day 2004 was around when i started following this blog i think. Pi was the (logo? header? something) at the soapbox at the time,and then it changed to something else. So many of the places i go online these days are stuff i first heard about here.

  38. Melissa Cowan3 says:
    19 March, 2011 at 10:40 am

    Thank goodness my mom is also a math nerd. She sent me an email on 3/14 that said “Happy Pi Day!”

  39. Randy Stewart says:
    20 March, 2011 at 2:53 pm

    My kids have grown up and are off to college, but at their high schools, the math department was so bad, boring, and bland that they would have never even considered having a Pi day. God forbid they do anything to creatively challenge the minds of our youth.
    Instead, they sit back on their tenure, tell the kids to read a chapter, and then bang out a standardized test.
    I really hate what the public school system has become.

  40. Faye says:
    24 March, 2011 at 10:25 am

    Speaking as someone who knows 338 digits of pi…I can officially say that 3/14 is the one day a year that I’m actually cool. I think I have used it as a pickup line actually…it does wonders on geeks.

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