84. Pi Day

Pi Day is an annual High School event marking the occasion of Pi in the calendar (March 14 or 3.14…) and celebrated with lots of pie.

Pi Day in the Dalton High School is an annual event celebrating the occasion of Pi in the calendar (March 14 or 3.14…) along with the joy of community. Discussions about pi in the classrooms, music in the hallway outside the math lab, students and faculty gathered together, and lots and lots of pie! To celebrate, the Math Department gives away Pi Day t-shirts every year.

Why is Pi important? Much of the universe and how it operates is based on the circle (and the stretched circle, the ellipse). This means many of the formulas that describe the physical nature of the universe (the planets, the stars, even the atom) are connected to the value of Pi. What’s even more surprising is that the value of Pi shows up mathematically in all sorts of places that seem to be completely disconnected with anything circular.

Of course, the true value of Pi can never be found completely, as the digits continue for eternity and never repeat. History is replete with efforts to determine more and more of these unending digits. Currently, we know more than 22 trillion of them and mathematicians, with the help of computers, continue searching for them.

It is for these reasons that the number Pi is so special, for its value is built in the very fabric of reality itself.
—Wendy Hirsch, Ph.D, Assistant Director of the High School & Dean of Faculty