Posts Tagged ‘pi’
The Annals of Synesthesia: Volume 3.14159…
Today (March 14, or 3.14) is Pi Day… so as a special treat (and, even for the arithmophobic, it is a treat):
As we wonder at the constant irrationality of it all, we might add another honoree to our festivities: Albert Einstein was born on this date in 1879.
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
What you do know can hurt you…
From the ever-entertaining xkcd, a behavioral analog to the Monty Hall Problem (and the variation considered here a couple of weeks ago)…
As we reconsider the odds, we might recall that it was on this date in 1777 that Swiss mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Johann Heinrich Lambert died in Berlin. Lambert, who was only 49 when he passed, made a number of contributions to scientific knowledge; but he is probably best remembered for the first proof (in 1768) that pi is irrational (that’s to say, can’t be expressed as the quotient of two integers).
Pi in the sky…
As we watch sheep chase ice cream cones across the summer sky, we might recall that on this date in 1974, at 8:01 a.m., a “10-Pak” of Juicy Fruit chewing gum with a bar code printed on it was passed over a scanner at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio– and became the first product ever logged under the new Universal Product Code (UPC) computerized recognition system.
Sharon Buchanan (pictured above 30 yrs later) performed the first ever bar code scan when she rang up this 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum, which is now at the Smithsonian. (source)
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