Geometry. You either loved it, or you hated it with a burning passion. But regardless of whether or not that class was one of your weaker points in your public education, just about everyone remembers learning about a curious number named pi. While we rounded it up to the hundredth digit when entering it into the calculator, the number of digits that pi consists of is a never ending circle (pun intended) of confusion that mathematicians are still struggling to understand. Here is just a few facts we’ve come to found out about pi over the literal thousands of years it’s been used.
Pi is an extremely irrational number
Now you have a valid point to make to your teacher when they tell you that learning geometry isn’t crazy. Yes, thanks to the studies made by mathematician and astronomer Johann Lambert back in 1768, pi is actually an irrational number. Not only is it infinitely long, it is also extremely random and has no discernable pattern. Me too, pi.
Pi was actually copyrighted at one point… kind of
This fact made me chuckle a little bit. In point, a doctor from Indiana decided that instead of using all these other decimal points in pi that we should round it all up to 3.2 for the purpose of math applications. He pitched his idea in 1897, saying that anyone who used it would have to pay him royalties (except in the state of Indiana). The state came to the conclusion that it was a pretty silly idea and refused to pass it as a law.
Someone took memorizing the digits of pi to the next level
A 21 year-old student by the name of Rajveer Meena got his name in the Guinness Book of World Records for reciting a whopping 70,000 digits of pi. You read that right- 70,000. How that is humanly possible is beyond me. It took him a grant total of nine hours to do it, and he wore a blindfold to prevent any possible accusations of cheating. Good for him, but weird flex bro.
Aliens are confuzzled about pi, as well
Back in 2008, a crop circle that was 150 feet in diameter appeared outside of an English village. While crop circles are an anomaly themselves, this one was special. It left researchers and conspiracy theorists scratching their heads until they determined that the image inside the crop circle was actually code for the first 10 digits of pi. Pretty wild, right?
Whole foods makes Pi Day a little sweeter
Everyone loves Pi Day. Or, if you didn’t know about it before, stop by Whole Foods on March 14th and grab yourself a tasty pie for only $3.14. Before you cut into it, measure its diameter and then use pi to determine its circumference. That way, you can find out how big of a slice everyone gets and enjoy the day equally.