Academy For The Passionately Curious: February 2015

I've been eagerly awaiting this year's Pi Day for a few years. On 3/14/15 9:26:53 the universe will align and my geeky little heart will squeak with joy. I've compiled a list of fun things to do with $π$

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$3 Interesting Facts:$

1. What is pi? The ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle, it will always be approximately 3.14 159.

2. Did you know that your birthday is probably in

π ? Find out where by going to Am I in Pi?

3. How long has Pi been around?

The importance of pi has been recognized for at least 4,000 years. A History of Pi notes that by 2000 B.C., "the Babylonians and the Egyptians (at least) were aware of the existence and significance of the constant

π

," recognizing that every circle has the same ratio of circumference to diameter. Both the Babylonians and Egyptians had rough numerical approximations to the value of pi, and later mathematicians in ancient Greece, particularly Archimedes, improved on those approximations. By the start of the 20th century, about 500 digits of pi were known. With computation advances, thanks to computers, we now know more than the first six billion digits of pi. Read more here.

1 Website Showing Pi

Step right up and get 10,000 digits of pi right here folks!

$4 Arts and Crafts:$

1. Pi-line

This is the project I'm most excited to do.

What does a skyline have to do with math? Each building represents a digit of pi of course! How cool is that? Visit What We Do All Day for more information and other neat math art projects.

2. Make a pi necklace

Assign a color bead to each digit 0-9. Use a triangle pendant to represent the integer of 3. From Diana Funke.

3. Pink Stripey Socks has 2 more ways to make pi into art.

4. Design your own pi related shirt.

Proof that math is it's own language

Aww, you are!

$1 Song About Pi$

5 Pi-tivities

1. Read a Sir Cumference book.

2. The Exploratorium shows you how to cut pi.

Carefully wrap string around the circumference of a circular object. Cut the string when it is exactly the same length as the circumference. Now take your “string circumference” and stretch it across the diameter of your circular object. Cut as many “string diameters” from your “string circumference” as you can. How many diameters could you cut? Compare your data with that of others. What do you notice?

3. Use pi with this freebie.