Pie vs. π vs. Pi Day 2017
It’s the fourteenth day of the third month! And if you’re a Brit, that means absolutely nothing. But take that date, flip reverse it like you’re American, and BOOM! It’s 3.14 or, as the cool kids call it, Pi Day.
In honour of this wonderful day, here are some awesome Pi/pie/π doohickies that we hope you’ll all enjoy!
Pi versus pie
Dramatised re-enactment of actual events
Have you found yourself embroiled in a textual or verbal conversation similar to the one above? Are you tired of having to explain that you’re not playing Minecraft on a piece of pastry, or that your lights aren’t being controlled by confectionery? Worry no more, for we have provided the following graphic as a visual aid to help you to introduce the uninitiated to the Raspberry Pi.*
Print off the PDF version for your classroom, Code Club, office, bedroom, locker door, Grandma, neighbour, local bus stop, newsletter, Christmas cards, and more!
Do it for the Pi (but please don’t eat it!)
This gem of a music video found its way to us via Twitter, and, in the moment we watched the preview snippet, the earworm lodged itself firmly into our brains and hearts.
https://www.facebook.com/CreativeMindFrame/videos/1572292599456481/
This is just one of many awesome videos from Creative Mind Frame and we highly recommend checking out more of his brilliant work.
But what about pie?
How could we publish a Pi Day blog post without mentioning pie? Here in the UK, I like to think we’re more of a savoury pie nation than our American friends. As far as desserts go, whether you head into a cafe, pull up a chair at your grandmother’s table, or simply browse the aisles of your local supermarket, you’re likely to find a wider array of tarts than pies on offer. Because of this, let me direct you towards our second Queen, Her Sublime Majesty Mary Berry, and this recipe for Mary’s Bakewell Tart. Raspberry jam and almonds? Yes, please!
Nommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Photo from BBC Food.
If the Bakewell doesn’t do it for you, you heathens, check out Rosanna Pansino‘s Mini Raspberry Pi Pies.
Last, but by no means least…
What exactly IS pi?
An excellent question. Here’s one of YouTube’s finest, maths-enthusiast The Odd 1s Out, to argue the case for his favourite number. Also, I stole his Pi/Pie Day artwork for today’s thumbnail so…thanks!
Whatever you do this Pi Day, make sure you have a great one. And if you build something great, learn something wonderful, or simply make a pie, be sure to share it using #PiDay and tag us so we can see it!
*Big up to Sam for the awesome graphic and the “YES!” he exclaimed when I asked him to draw a Pi versus a pie…Street Fighter-style.
30 comments
Mathematician
British Pi day (22 July) is more accurate:
22/7 – pi = 0.00126…
pi – 3.14 = 0.00159…
Bob
Ha, good point!
Richard
Them crazy Americans and their illogical date format. ;-p
Love the Pi vs Pie comparison.
Stewart Watkiss
All hail the mighty middle-endian date format.
Yes that really is the correct term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country
But why, oh why ???
matt p
im american :(
Carl Jacobsen
All the cool kids use ISO 8601 format, so it’s 2017-03-14.
It’s the only date format that works properly with a standard ASCII sort.
Barry Christian
Agreed! ?
Milliways
Not only that, it is the US Standard! Just not common usage.
Ken MacIver
To see how PI just goes on and on and on….
Have a look at this vid by Brady Haran on his numberphile channel.
https://youtu.be/0r3cEKZiLmg
PI printed out on a mile long strip of paper and unrolled..
Now I’m looking for a mile of Pies to munch through.
John
This year pi day is only accurate to 2 decimal places (3/14), last year, however, it was accurate to 4 decimal places (3/14/16), therefore last year the Americans pi day was more accurate than the UK pi day.
If the Raspberry Pi’s birthday was to be allocated a special day then I would suggest calling it “i day” this year (and for the next two years as well) as the 29th February is imaginary.
e,i and pi are linked through e ^ (i * pi) + 1 =0.
In the UK we don’t have a decimal pi day, as suggested above this would be the 22nd July, but the 27th January could be e day and the 16th January could be phi (Golden ratio) day, with the 14th January being root 2 day and 17th March Root 3 day, however further discussion would be irrational.
Nedstryger
You’re thinking way too hard! Relax and have some pie.
Zech
But what about 2 years ago?
It was 3/14/15 and you could include the time at 9:26:53 and even include milliseconds(58).
This would allow up to 3.14159265358.
karan
Calculating π using a raspberry pi: https://www.wired.com/2017/03/lets-calculate-pi-raspberry-pi-celebrate-pi-day/
Martin
You don’t want a Bakewell Tart – you want a Bakewell Pudding.
Totally surprised to find some of my heathen friends had never heard of the things.
Peter Ryan
(to be read in the voice of Moss from the IT Crowd)
Looking at the Mary Berry bakewell tart, it’s readily apparent that she knows nothing of Python coding; [snorts] she’s only gone and decorated it with ruddy curly braces hasn’t she?!
;)
Marek
Hi.Happy birthday !
For a birthday present I wish myself a faster video driver, possibly without libblob, so my rpi modelA could be little bit more usable and even sweeter :-)
All best guys!
Nathan
Who else came here for a RPi4 announcement? ;-)
Carl Jacobsen
Not me, my watch says it’s a year too early for that.
Mike C
Note that the ISO date format would be 2017-03-14, which then puts the month and day in the correct order for Pi day.
AndrewS
See you on 9th May, 3141 :-)
Dougie
Here’s 10,000 digits for your amusement.
3 [Mod snipped 9,999 digits so people can view this page on mobile devices].
Carl Jacobsen
Thanks! I usually only remember the first 50.
Dougie
After losing some fun (due to an over zealous) moderator. You’ll have to run this
#include
int a=10000,b,c=2800,d,e,f[2801],g;
main(){
for(;b-c;)f[b++]=a/5;
for(;d=0,g=c*2;c-=14,printf(“%.4d”,e+d/a),e=d%a)
for(b=c;d+=f[b]*a,f[b]=d%–g,d/=g–,–b;d*=b);
}
Liz Upton
Better, Dougie. (And you wouldn’t be calling me overzealous if you were on the receiving end of the “WHY IS EVERYTHING BROKEN WHEN I TRY TO READ IT ON MY PHONE?” emails. Don’t do it again.)
Dougie
They should try this one http://three.onefouronefivenine.com/
that works OK on my mobile/cell/handy phone
BTW, I lost some text in my previous post it should say
include <stdio.h>
E
Gotta Love The Pi…
ALinuxLover
I’m American and I don’t write dates like that.
Milliways
As usual the Americans have the wrong end of the stick! “3.14” isn’t an American date, it should be 3/14. Now 22/7 is a closer approximation, and should be the official π day.
On the subject of pies, Americans don’t know what they are missing. I was disappointed, visiting a Cafe/bookshop on Staten Island, looking for lunch. The advertised pies were a disappointment.
Here, in Australia a pie means meat pie, usually with sauce!
Dex
Kiwi pronunciation sounds more like “poi”, the ‘ball-on-a-string’ in Maori cultural performances. I don’t think they’re any more tasty than a Pi of any kind.
piscope
what about icecream