SIMPLE AS "PI."

One of my oldest and dearest friends from high school– Brigid Smith– is a brilliant writer and wrote the following in honor of today’s special date!

“It’s Pi Day!
3/14/2012 12:00:00 PM
Every year on March 14 we pause to celebrate pi, the irrational number commonly abbreviated to 3.14. Some enthusiasts go so far as to mark Pi Minute, 1:59 PM, taking into account the first six digits of the number: 3.14159. (We can’t wait until March 14, 2015!)
Why should I care about Pi?
This is a question I often asked myself as Sister Sabina (R.I.P.) at Lauralton Hall kept trying to beat it into me (literally in those days) that pi mattered. As we all know, pi is the number you get when you divide the circumference of a circle (the distance around the circle) by its diameter (the distance across). In other words, the circumference of any circle is approximately 3.14 times its diameter. Because pi is an irrational number (I actually thought Sister Sabina was a little irrational on this subject), it has an infinite number of digits. No matter how many decimal places we calculate, pi will always be an approximation.
Because pi is the same for every circle, we can use it to determine the diameter if we know the circumference, or vice versa. When we know the diameter, it’s easy to calculate the area.
So, with this info, I have addressed the question: Why should I care about pi? The answer is, “I shouldn’t.”
The History of Pi
To be fair, many people do care about pi and have for thousands of years – at least since the ancient Babylonians discovered it 4,000 years ago. Since pi goes on forever, even the most powerful supercomputers can never know all of pi’s numbers.
Three Interesting Pi Facts
March 14 is Albert Einstein’s birthday (I mean, what are the chances of THAT?);
In 2011, Shigeru Kondo calculated 5 trillion digits of pi… and then blew that away with 10 trillion digits! Clearly an overachiever.
March 14 is the day the Massachusetts Institute of Technology typically notifies successful applicants. Gotta love those funsters at MIT!
And tomorrow is the Ides of March
Knowing pi was of no use to Julius Caesar that day! Et tu, Brute?”