Cynical Nation

Mmm, π....

Today, March 14 (get it? 3/14?) is the day we celebrate everybody's favorite transcendental number, pi.

If you're looking for ways to celebrate, eating pie seems like a good idea. Not only does it sound like "pi," but it has both a circumference and a diameter, whose ratio is... π.

It might also be a good idea to remember Ludolph van Ceulen, a German mathematician who, centuries ago, made it his life's work to calculate pi as accurately as possible.

He did quite well for his day. He calculated 35 decimal places! Unfortunately, the effort proved too much for him, and he died of exhaustion as a result. All 35 digits were carved into his tombstone as a tribute. No, I am not making this up.

It's kind of a sad story when you think about it. I mean think how easy it would be to reproduce his life's work on a computer these days? Oh well, at least they didn't invent computers like, that next year or something.

That and many more fun geeky stories can be found in Petr Beckman's fascinating
"A History of Pi." Seriously, it's a more interesting read than you'd think.