Pi Day Transcends St. Paddy's

Do not stop reading.

The mere appearance of the symbol (π) or the word "Pi" is enough to bring back trembles that began in Junior High.  But you know perfectly well that you haven't thought of Pi for years.  If you had or have kids, you just let it rest at "Use 3.14, for God's sake!" and let them do their own damned homework.  If they still have homework.

Today is 3.14, as the Europeans would have it, and, therefore, is Pi Day.  But not as cool as five years from now when it will be 3.1415 (ironically no rounding here).

Pi Day has traditionally been lost in the run up to St. Patrick's day, just like your car keys or, for that matter, your car.  Mathematicians are too busy working on the next generation of mortgage-backed-security derivatives for Goldman Sachs to loose on us when the SEC stops looking, probably next week.  They can't be gathered in one Irish bar easily, like the rest of us.  You try talking about multi-dimensional space with pretzels in your mouth for five hours.  Such words, aside from, Pi maybe, do not flow as readily as green beer.

Unlike St. Patrick, however, Pi can wait.  Pi is as infinite teenage angst, for which it is partially responsible; as transcendental as a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay (see teenage angst above); and as misunderstood as Alan Greenspan's legacy (see teenage angst above but apply it to a 401K).

So, what is Pi, you having long since forgotten it and the teenage heartache that supplanted it?  Pi is the product of the circumference of a circle (that's the round part) and its diameter (the straight-through-the-heart part, the heart not being on the ring itself).  Something like that and, no, you don't need to remember these things when you move to the next blog.  They are just approximations, just like 3.14.

It should be noted that 3.14 is a very weak approximation.  (Think this blog versus, say, literature.)  Pi has been computed out to 1 trillion digits and it keeps on going.  Like a circle, Pi has no end.  That is a real circle, not the oblong-looking things you are doodling right now.  In that endless sense, Pi is just like God or the usual Megan Fox obsession.

Pi is not restricted to circles, either, which are as two dimensional as any Jim Cameron character. It even had its own smaller-than-Avatar-grossing movie.  And Pi is in the middle of all kinds of objects. like baseballs, and equations, like the volume of a baseball.  Add steroids to get multi-dimensional equations with Pi, equations that reach $30 million a not-endless-season.

Let the celebration begin!  Let it run right through St. Paddy's Day.  Hell, let it run all the way to next year.  Pi is like that and deserves no less.

But, don't try a Pi Parade at home without a bucket of Dramamine and shift-designated bartenders.  Each of whom can double as your spotter.