March Fourteenth is National Pi Day

Technically, National PI Day is supposed to celebrate scientific education and things mathmatical in particular …

Pi on a pie
A file photo

March Fourteenth is National Pi Day.

The rationale for Pi Day is the numeric shorthand of 3.14 for March 14 is also the numeric constant for Pi, a mathematical constant with all sorts of implications for things circular.

The celebration of Pi Day has its formal beginning in 1988 when someone at San Francisco’s Exploratorium first promoted March 14 as a day to celebrate things mathematical and related things scientific.

Pi Day events include how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long rolled out its acceptance letters on National Pi Day.

An MIT nerds’ prank atop MIT’s Great Dome
Image via WBUR

Additionally, March 14 2015 was celebrated as Super Pi Day as stringing this date and the time of 9:26:53 AM yields 3.14.15.9:26:53, the first ten digits of the unending Irrational Number that is the mathematical constant pi.

Even so, not to mention as should only be expected, pastry purveyors and their marketers have latched on Pi Day to promote pies even if January 23 is National Pie Day.

Then again, as curmudgeon extraordinaire and journalist H.L. Mencken once sagely noted, “(n)o one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

Source: NATIONAL PI DAY – March 14, 2021 | National Today