This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
On the one hand, I like Pi Day because I get to eat pizza and/or pie, and I like things that get people excited about math, but on the other hand, I'm an adult, and I get to eat pizza and/or pie whenever I want, Pi Day or no. Like Matt at Math Goes Pop, I don't think Pi Day activities are generally mathematically helpful or interesting. Maybe I'm just jealous because I can only remember 8 digits of π (which, I'd like to point out, is well more than enough for anything I'll ever need to do with it), but I think digit recitation contests are pointless*. I like drawing circles as much as the next math geek, but I've never seen any Pi Day circle activities that struck me as special.
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So instead of making a new contribution to the field of Pi Day posts, here's a round-up of nice internet Pi Day stuff I've seen so far.
All Squared, Number 3: As Easy As... by the nice British math (or as they say, maths) blog The Aperiodical. They have a Pi Day podcast and a bunch of links to other Pi Day posts, including π in base-(the 1000 most common words in the English language).
The Mathematical Association of America Pi Day page has more links, a video of the Pi/e debates, and a gallery of Pi Day pies, to which you can contribute your own photos if you so desire.
How Much Pi Do You Need? My post from last summer about July 22, or 22/7, an alternative π celebration day.
Five Posts on Computing Pi, including a really cool infinite product involving the square root of 2, on John D. Cook's blog The Endeavour.
Medieval Insights into the Irrationality of Pi by Samuel Arbesman at Wired has an interesting history lesson, complete with a Medieval manuscript in Hebrew.
Happy Pi Day! by Anna Giangregorio includes a list of alternative Pi Day celebration dates, including December 21, the 355th day of the year, at 1:13, commemorating the fraction 355/113, an even better approximation of π than 3.14 or 22/7.
A Pi Day Mystery by Ihor Charishak at CLIME Connections. Maybe those Pi Day activities aren't so pointless after all. This one looks pretty cool.
Why I Hate Pi Day by Marshall Thompson at MT|SM. He's cool, darnit, and he doesn't want any stupid Pi Day celebrations making math teachers look nerdy!
The videos, oh, the videos! Vi Hart sent us a Singing Pi Gram by converting the decimal digits of π to notes of the scale, and she made some PiDay videos in years past as well. Numberphile calculated π using real pies, and they have an entire π playlist for our viewing pleasure.
Pi Day has gotten popular enough that marketers are trying to figure out how to capitalize on it. King Arthur Flour is running a Pi Day special ($3.14 shipping on your $31.41 order). (Via Mr. Chase Math.) Check to see if your local pizza joint or bakery is having a sale too.
Yesterday the American Mathematical Society Twitter account started the #pimoviepitches hashtag, which is pretty fun. My contribution is "Pi Club: An insomniac high schooler finds relief in geometry class but is dragged into a violent underground math society."
And finally, Dinosaur Comics takes on Pi Day.
Now a confession. I am celebrating Pi Day this year. But only because I like parties and baking. The Association for Women in Mathematics chapter at the local university is having a Pi Day game night tonight, and I baked a pie. It's cranberry-apple, and it's going to be amazing.
*2017/03/15: This sentence was changed to correct ableist language.