Pies, math the stars as Terre Haute marks unusual Pi Day
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - Math lovers celebrate Pi Day annually, but this year's unofficial holiday of the mathematical constant is promising to be infinitely interesting.
On Saturday - March 14, 2015 - the date will align with the first five digits of Pi, 3.1415, a phenomenon that will not occur again for another century.
The Grand Traverse Pie Co., a Michigan-based bakery which has plans to mark the special occasion, calls it a "once in a lifetime" event.
Pi is used to note the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Pi = 3.1415926535... It is often written as 3.14159 or 3.14 for short, but Pi is an "irrational and transcendental number" that will continue infinitely without repeating.
"Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point," according to piday.org, a website that has all things pi. "As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern. While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, Pi's infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits." It is a constant that math students see in geometry often.
Several local pi enthusiasts plan to celebrate the holiday. The Grand Traverse Pie Co.'s Terre Haute location, 75 N. Third St., is giving away a free slice of ABC pie (apple, blueberry and cherry mixed together) with any purchase, General Manager Steve Huddleston told the Tribune-Star (http://bit.ly/1b7D8sb ).
As a pie company, the establishment likes to get involved with anything "pie" or "pi" related, he said. Other Grand Traverse Pie Co. locations will be doing the same giveaway all day Saturday.
"We've been working toward it all week long," Huddleston said. His staff has been preparing pies marked with the pi symbol in the last few days. He said a couple hundred pies may be used on Saturday for the event.
Huddleston is expecting a big turnout, especially because local students started talking about this year's big pi event during last year's Pi Day.
"Last year, they were already talking about this year," he said. "This year is kind of special."
Students at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology have started marking super Pi Day with a chalk-writing event on Thursday night. Those affiliated with the RHIT chapter of Tau Beta Pi, an engineering honor society, had planned to gather in the heart of campus to write out pi digits on sidewalks starting at 9 p.m.
It was an effort to decorate the campus for Pi Day, said Tommy Mulc, a member of Tau Beta Pi who led the planning of the event. It was a tradition for the honor society and a fun activity for its members, he added.
He was looking forward to Pi Day. "It's a day when math and science people get to celebrate something technical," he said, adding that it's nice to know that once a year, math is recognized.
"It definitely does raise awareness for math and education," said Mulc, a math and mechanical engineering major at RHIT.
The same group was hosting a "Pie-A-Prof" event Friday at Root Quadrangle to benefit the Terre Haute Children's Museum.
The goal of the event was to raise money for a good cause and have fun, said Andrew Koustenis, former president of Tau Beta Pi. The biomedical engineering student led the organization of the fundraising event. "The professors always enjoy it, too" because it is for charity, he said.
The students seem very excited about Pi Day.
"Pi, as a number, has significance in mathematics and engineering," Koustenis said. Celebrating Pi Day is in line with the honor society's mission of promoting engineering.
"I feel excited," he said of the unofficial holiday. "It's a fun way to celebrate math and ... engineering," he added.
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Information from: Tribune-Star, http://www.tribstar.com