Every year on March 14, the world, particularly the fans of mathematics, celebrate the International Pi Day. This year, is, however, special. Pi value is 3.14, and this year the celebrations are taking place on 3/14/15 making the first three digits of the date same to that of the digits in the value of Pi.
To make the occasion even more special for you, we are here with a few facts that you never knew about Pi. Read on, and you’ll surely feel fascinated.
- All of us know about the Green mathematician Archimedes, primarily because of his famous “Eureka” quote. However, few of us know how obsessed he was with calculations involving Pi.
- Due to this obsession, he ended up yelling at a soldier form the enemy group during the Roman invasion; the reason behind this silly act of his was a mathematical drawing that took his focus away from what’s happening around him.
- Do you want to know what he said to the soldier? He said, “Don’t touch my circles”. The result was death; the soldier cut the great mathematicians head off. Archimedes’s obsession with Pi ended up taking his life.
- There’s a strong link of Pi and the death of another famous individual. He is Ludolf van Ceulen, a Dutchman, who is known for extending the run up to 35 places.
- He passed away in 1610, and the numbers 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288 got engraved on his gravestone. It’s not known whether it was done according to Ceulen’s instructions, but it can be said that he was also known for his obsession with Pi and its value.
- If Ceulen was alive today he would have been extremely happy to see that we know the value of Pi up to more than 13 trillion places. This has been possible only due to the advancements in technology and the supercomputers those advancements have given birth to.
- One fascinating fact is that even after taking the value of Pi to more than 13 trillion places, there are no repetitions or patterns.
