It's π Day!! March 14 2015
Since 1988 math enthusiasts have been celebrating 3/14, as “Pi Day.” Pi, roughly equal to 3.14, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter; an irrational number that has been calculated out 10 trillion digits with no repeating patterns and seems a mystery in its conceptual simplicity.
This year’s Pi Day is extra special. The year being 2015 makes the date as written, 3/14/15 and π calculated out two more decimal places is 3.1415. Calculate to nine decimal places and π is 3.141592653. This means that on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 we will have witnessed the longest extended Pi Day of our lives, the next not coming around until March 14, 2115!
Today, have fun with math! Read a little about why we think math is so awesome, and maybe even pick up a few of our favorite math titles at 20% OFF! Happy π Day!
Math, Beautiful Math!
Who could ever say that math is not meaningful, beautiful, graceful, delightful, and artistic? Certainly no one who has ever investigated hand drawn geometry, or solved a difficult algebraic equation when math is not “your thing.” Not anyone who has utilized fractions to build a shelf or a table or a closet door! Without math where would we be?
There are enemies of math, of course. These are the ones who measure math in grueling tests with confusing, multiple-choice answers, who do not want youngsters to see the unbelievable glory of the whole of mathematics.
Watch out for this…it can rob us all of the truth that we live in math; that we are made of light (straight lines), triangles and circles (geometry); that we are made of magic numbers (thirty-three vertebrae with 24 vertebrae separated and articulated, nine are fused; two lungs, twenty-four ribs, 206 bones in the entire skeleton); The head is one-seventh of the whole human form at adulthood (fractions); a baby’s head is one-fourth of it’s complete length (proportion); and we all count our years on earth with enthusiastic regularity (cardinality of numbers). Surely we all count dollars and coins very carefully!
Meanwhile the elegance of straight lines and curved lines, the simplicity of clear thinking needed to solve any tangle of math problems, and the entryways into botany, mineralogy, physics, music, and many another science are limitless through math.
Johannes Kepler, in calculating the math for astronomy, heard music! Pythagoras accepted that mathematics and geometry were gateways to the cosmos and established a Mystery center into which no one could enter with purification and demonstrated comprehension of the laws of form and number.
Pythagoras saw all of life in number and form. Once he was asked what the definition of friendship was and he took some time to answer. When he did he declared it was the one “Who is the other I, like the numbers 220 and 284.” Add up the aliquot parts of these numbers (aliquot parts means all the divisors excluding the number itself) and you find that the sum of the aliquot parts of 220 add up to 284 and the sum of the aliquot parts of 284 equal 220. The numbers 220 and 284 form the smallest pair of amicable numbers (also known as friendly numbers) known to Pythagoras.
Whether or not one starts with the Pythagorean theorem: a2 + b2 = c2 , provable with geometry or launches into some of the more demanding advanced algebraic challenges, the joy of completion is unparalleled in math!
In Waldorf schools this joy in counting, clapping, times tables, fractions, form, movement, strategic thinking, clear solutions, math as friend and companion, starts in Kindergarten and never stops.
Wherever did the current math anxiety originate? It is rooted in falseness and divorces us from our very constitutions as human beings! Say “No,” to fear, and “Yes!” to math. Even modest steps into the endless rhythms of mathematics can be healing, instructive, reaffirming, and, well, just plain old fun!
Check Out Our π Day Sale!!
Use code MATH2015 during check out to save 20% on books in the Mathematics, Geometry, and Form Drawing collection.
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Sale ends March 21, 2015. Online orders only!