Pi Day at Garces. Another good reason to give to Catholic Charities – raise enough money and Coach Gass will take a pie to the face. We love Coach Gass. pic.twitter.com/wFx3o7kYBH
— Garces Memorial High School (@GarcesMemorial) March 14, 2018
Back in my misspent high school days I got extra credit in one of my math classes by giving presentations on Friday each week on the lives of famous mathematicians, my way of compensating for the fact that math and I have always had a tortured relationship. However, even though higher math will always remain a closed book to me, the history of math is not, and it reminds me that exploration in the realm of pure knowledge can be just as exciting as the exploration of the earth and the stars. Faith and Reason allow us to explore the glory of God’s creation and what we do with the knowledge we gain thereby makes all the difference, both in time and in eternity.
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau:
Mock on, mock on: ‘tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a Gem,
Reflected in the beam divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking Eye,
But still in Israel’s paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And the Newton’s Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.
William Blake
Math remained a closed book to me, Donald, until I got to US Naval Nuclear Power School and learned that if I didn’t my reactor theory calculations correctly, then I had better learn to breathe seawater inasmuch as a thousand feet below the surface is a very unforgiving environment.
Nevertheless, Happy Pi (3.14) Day to everyone!
Tomorrow the 15th is the Ides of March.
Then the 16th is our – Myrna ‘s and mine – wedding anniversary.
Following that the 17th is St. Patrick’s Day!
I’ve never understood the non math/eng’s student’s fascination with Pi.
A circle is a closed regular polygon with infinite sides, it stands to reason that both the circumference and area of a circle would be in proportion to an irrational constant, just as the square root of any prime number must also be irrational.
I also don’t understand how elite schools that now charge between 15K & 20K per year per student can still proport themselves to be Universal.
– sorry to be a kill-joy, but the Church is going look awfully funny without a middle class. As the need for faith filled education has increased exponentially, the availability has declined for everyone except elites and a few poor.
“A circle is a closed regular polygon with infinite sides, it stands to reason that both the circumference and area of a circle would be in proportion to an irrational constant, just as the square root of any prime number must also be irrational.”
“Why tis as clear as the summer’s sun”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pnk1fbGNWrM
The scary thing is that even before I attended law school, or college for that matter, I could follow the Archbishop’s argument on the Salic law quite easily, while math was always a puzzle to me. Brains are funny things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqlSG9CyaQU
The great thing about most physics and math is that one need only memorize very few things, the rest can be derived.
Some brains yearn for derivation and the non need of memorization.
Is it cleverness or laziness? I’m really not sure. Lol.
My good lady is a mathphobe (her ace is Medieval History), and she wonders about the fascination numbers have for me and several of the male grandchildren (all on the spectrum). Grandson #6 at the age of 2 would go up to people and ask them “What number are you?” Or, as “The Prisoner” would say, “I am not a number!”
David WS: when I was teaching thermo 40 or 50 years ago I would give students on tests a cheat sheet with the three laws of thermodynamics and ask them to derive various thermo relations (e.g adiabatic expansion of an ideal gas). The premeds hated these exams. They would always ask what should we memorize for the test.
“I am not a number!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0LaT6qVRpg
Sounds right Bob…. as an EE I must admit though…. As a professor of mine said:” If you’re an EE and you like Thermo, or you’re an ME and you like Circuits…. There’s something wrong with you. Lol. “
“A circle is a closed regular polygon with infinite sides, it stands to reason that both the circumference and area of a circle would be in proportion to an irrational constant, just as the square root of any prime number must also be irrational.”
– using the equation for a equal multisided polygon calculate the area of a four sided polygon (square) with equal sides, then five equal sides (pentagon), then 6, 60, 1×10^6, working towards but never reaching infinite sides (a circle) and you’ll never quite get to exactly the value of that constant called Pi, an irrational number.
Clear now?
(Thank goodness I don’t need to memorize this stuff. Hope I didn’t just take the fun and mystery out of it. )
david WS, some numbers might make it clearer for mathphobes.
circumference of inscribed square < pi *d (daimeter) < circumf. of circumscribed square
(4 / sqrt(2) x d < pi x d > 4 d 2.82 < pi < 4 mean: 3.4
for hexagon
6x( d/2) < pi x d < 2 sqrt(3() d or 3 < pi < 3.46 mean 3.23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_7oZeKBpsE
In my city a supermarket chain sells bakery small pies for 3.14 on Pi Day.
Bob, you and I both know that’s not Math, that’s Arithmetic. 🙂
There are some heavy duty mathematical proofs of the irrationality of Pi involving calculus and Taylor series..but Archimedes calculation method using algebra and trig are best. Nice and simple. In fact I thought of it myself before I even knew he had done it. The water lifting screw also. Weird. Engineers think alike.
https://mathscholar.org/2019/02/simple-proofs-archimedes-calculation-of-pi/
I made the pin on my debit card the last 4 digits of Pi so that no thief could guess it.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Pi is wrong. Tau(2Pi) is what we need to be celebrating on June 28th. Pi gets you a semi circle. Tau gets you the whole thing.The symbol Pi first appeared in a paper by Euler and he was ambivalent on whether it was 3.14 or 6.28. Why do we always have to carry that 2 around in all those equations.
Although one thing that Pi does have going for is that it is calculated in the bible
“And [Hiram] made a molten sea, 10 cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and…a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about” (1 Kings 7:23)
So wait until June 28th and have two pies
The derivative with respect to r of: pir^2 area is 2pir circumference flat circle… of a sphere volume 4/3pi^3 is sphere surface area 4*pi^2.
Pi is the constant.
(Remember the first equation and you have all four.)
Correction: with the first equation, 4/3 and derivative key you have all four.
I was told there would be no math!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVbCGOagnMs
Don, bear with it ..we don’t often get to do mathspeak in columns. And what was the title of the book? “God is a mathematician” and, I forget who said it “The language God speaks is mathematics.”
Kimberly: it’s pi that’s important, not 2pi. As David WS pointed that’s what the infinite series and algebraic definition gives you. and it’s euler’s relation, exp(i pi) = -1 or cos(pi) = -1 that’s significant.
A mathematician, physicist and engineer check into a hotel. Late at night the hotel catches fire…
– The mathematician is first to awake, studying the fire he spots a solution to the problem – a fire extinguisher on the wall. Satisfied that he has found a solution to the problem, he goes back to sleep.
– The physicist is the next to awake. Studying the fire, he’s amazed at what appears to be a living thing. He correctly identifies that aiming the fire extinguisher at base of the flame would have the greatest effect. So fascinated by the fire, he ignores the danger, is overcome by smoke and passes out.
– The engineer is last to awake. He studies the notes of the mathematician and physicist, and puts the fire out.
So much of the math we have was developed hundreds of years ago, physics within the last hundred years. Engineers view math and physics as tools in their tool box. To learn algebra or any math and not be instructed that these are secrets of the universe and also very useful tools is an utter shame….
My wife will often accuse me of being a mathematician, because I will often identify the solution to a home project and then satisfied, I’ll take a nap. 🙂
@Mr Kurland, I must respectively and vehemently disagree about Euler and pi. Euler’s equation and tau go together like apple pie and wine (but neither are allowed during Lent). Euler’s equation with tau is sheer mathematical poetry. e^(i* tau) = 1
Kimberly, diagree if you must, but you’re formulation of the Euler reltion is essentially an identity, e.g. cos(2pi)) =1 . going back to the same point is the identity.
Math guys celebrate pi day, but in my experience, engineers prefer celebrating pi approximation day on July 22 🙂
It’s close enough… you can’t see the error from MY house!
https://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=955