Yesterday was Pi Day (3.14, approximately), and appropriately enough comes this analysis of the irrational number by Vi Hart, a recreational “mathemusician” at Khan Academy. You might remember her from her viral video about love and self-delusion on the Mobius strip. In the video below, she explores—in seven sonnets—whether “Romeo and Juliet” and other of the Bard’s works are encoded within pi. As usual with her work, it’s witty, adorable and informative.
You can look to see if your phone number or other number string appears within the first 200 million digits of pi at this pi search page.
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Philip Yam is the managing editor of ScientificAmerican.com, responsible for the overall news content online. He began working at the magazine in 1989, first as a copyeditor and then as a features editor specializing in physics. He is the author of The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting and Other Prion Diseases. Follow Philip Yam on Twitter
