World Pi Day 2023 | Quiz

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (Greek letter “π”) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi has been calculated to over 60 trillion digits beyond its decimal point. 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.

On this occasion of World Pi Day, let us have a look into some interesting facts about Pi.

Pi is the most recognized mathematical constant in the world. Scholars often consider Pi the most important and intriguing number in all of mathematics.

The symbol for pi (π) has been used regularly in its mathematical sense only for the past 250 years.

Egyptologists and followers of mysticism have been fascinated for centuries by the fact that the Great Pyramid at Giza seems to approximate pi. The vertical height of the pyramid has the same relationship to the perimeter of its base as the radius of a circle has to its circumference.

We can never truly measure the circumference or the area of a circle because we can never truly know the value of pi. Pi is an irrational number, meaning its digits go on forever in a seemingly random sequence.

In the Greek alphabet, π (piwas) is the sixteenth letter. In the English alphabet, p is also the sixteenth letter.

The letter π is the first letter of the Greek word “periphery” and “perimeter.” The symbol π in mathematics represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. In other words, π is the number of times a circle’s diameter will fit around its circumference.

If the circumference of the Earth were calculated using π rounded to only the ninth decimal place, an error of no more than one quarter of an inch in 25,000 miles would result.

In 1995, Hiroyoki Gotu memorized 42,195 places of pi and is considered the current pi champion. Some scholars speculate that Japanese is better suited than other languages for memorizing sequences of numbers.

A mysterious 2008 crop circle in Britain shows a coded image representing the first 10 digits of pi.

Ludolph van Ceulen (1540-1610) spent most of his life calculating the first 36 digits of pi (which were named the Ludolphine Number). According to legend, these numbers were engraved on his now lost tombstone.

William Shanks (1812-1882) worked for years by hand to find the first 707 digits of pi. Unfortunately, he made a mistake after the 527th place and, consequently, the following digits were all wrong.

In 2002, a Japanese scientist found 1.24 trillion digits of pi using a powerful computer called the Hitachi SR 8000, breaking all previous records.

Since there are 360 degrees in a circle and pi is intimately connected with the circle, some mathematicians were delighted to discover that the number 360 is at the 359th digit position of pi.

Pi has been studied by the human race for almost 4,000 years. By 2000 B.C., Babylonians established the constant circle ratio as 3-1/8 or 3.125. The ancient Egyptians arrived at a slightly different value of 3-1/7 or 3.143.

One of the earliest known records of pi was written by an Egyptian scribe named Ahmes (c. 1650 B.C.) on what is now known as the Rhind Papyrus. He was off by less than 1% of the modern approximation of pi (3.141592).

The Rhind Papyrus (c. 1650 B.C.) was the first attempt to calculate pi by “squaring the circle,” which is to measure the diameter of a circle by building a square inside the circle.

The “squaring the circle” method of understanding pi has fascinated mathematicians because traditionally the circle represents the infinite, immeasurable, and even spiritual world while the square represents the manifest, measurable, and comprehensive world.

Computing pi is a stress test for a computer—a kind of “digital cardiogram.”

The first million decimal places of pi consist of 99,959 zeros, 99,758 1s, 100,026 2s, 100,229 3s, 100,230 4s, 100,359 5s, 99,548 6s, 99,800 7s, 99,985 8s, and 100,106 9s.

The Bible alludes to pi in 1 Kings 7:23 where it describes the altar inside Solomon’s temple: “And he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim . . . and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.” Some scholars interpret this to mean that the value of pi is 3.

Al-Khwarizmi, who lived in Baghdad around A.D. 800, worked on a value of pi calculated to four digits: 3.1416. The term “algorithm” derives from his name, and his text Kitab al-Jabr wal-Muqabala (The Book of Completion Concerning Calculating by Transposition and Reduction) gives us the word “algebra” (from al-Jabr, which means “completion” or “restoration”).

Ancient mathematicians tried to compute pi by inscribing polygons with more and more sides that would more closely approach the area of a circle. Archimedes used a 96-sided polygon. Chinese mathematician Liu Hui inscribed a 192-sided polygon and then a 3,072-sided polygon to calculate pi to 3.14159. Tsu Ch’ung and his son inscribed polygons with as many as 24,576 sides to calculate pi (the result had only an 8-millionth of 1% difference from the now accepted value of pi).

William Jones (1675-1749) introduced the symbol “π” for pi in 1706, and it was later popularized by Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) in 1737.

There are no occurrences of the sequence 123456 in the first million digits of pi—but of the eight 12345s that do occur, three are followed by another 5. The sequence 012345 occurs twice and, in both cases, it is followed by another 5.

The father of calculus (meaning “pebble used in counting” from calx or “limestone”), Isaac Newton calculated pi to at least 16 decimal places.

Pi is also referred to as the “circular constant,” “Archimedes’ constant,” or “Ludolph’s number.”

In the seventeenth century, pi was freed from the circle and applied also to curves, such as arches and hypocycloids, when it was found that their areas could also be expressed in terms of pi. In the twentieth century, pi has been used in many areas, such as number theory, probability, and chaos theory.

The first six digits of pi (314159) appear in order at least six times among the first 10 million decimal places of pi.

“Pi Day” is celebrated on March 14 (which was chosen because it resembles 3.14). The official celebration begins at 1:59 p.m., to make an appropriate 3.14159 when combined with the date. Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day (3/14/1879) in Ulm Wurttemberg, Germany.