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Celebrate Pi Day 2015 With ‘Star Trek’: Pi Day Jokes, Fun Facts, And A Word From Spock

By Cheryl Phillips
Published on: 01:05 PST, Mar 12, 2015

Math enthusiasts around the world will celebrate Pi Day on March 14, a day that has been celebrated by number lovers since 2009, including Star Trek‘s beloved Dr. Spock (video above).

What is pi, anyway? Unfortunately, it’s not a dessert, it’s a mathematical constant. However, if you’re throwing a Pi Day bash, the American Pie Council suggests that you serve your favorite apple, blueberry, or pecan pie at your party. After all, who wouldn’t want to indulge in a tasty dessert while chatting about math?

In case your middle school math class is a very distant memory, pi is the symbol (?) for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Brownie points if you listened in class and remembered that.

Pi = 3.1415926535…

According to Live Science, pi is the most “widely known mathematical constant” — no wonder there’s a day set aside to celebrate its popularity.

The yearly celebration started back in 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives designated March 14 as the official day honor pi. The date was picked because the first three digits of the pi are 3.14.

“By definition, pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. In other words, pi equals the circumference divided by the diameter (? = c/d). Conversely, the circumference is equal to pi times the diameter (c = ?d). No matter how large or small a circle is, pi will always work out to be the same number.”

Even if you’re not having a Pi Day party on Saturday, you can honor pi by learning some new Pi Day jokes.

  • What do you get if you divide the circumference of a bowl of ice cream by its diameter?… Pi a’la mode.
  • What do you get when you take the sun and divide its circumference by its diameter?…Pi in the sky.
  • What do you get when you take green cheese and divide its circumference by its diameter?… Moon Pi.

If you are feeling creative, you can write your own pi-ku. Need a conversation starter? Here are some fun facts, courtesy of Network World, about the famous mathematical constant pi.

  • Albert Einstein‘s birthday was on Pi Day — March 14, 1879. Perhaps he served pie for his birthday instead of cake.
  • 3.14 backwards looks like PIE
  • Pi was the secret code in Alfred Hitchcock’s Tom Curtain and The Net, starring Sandra Bullock.

Get social with your math-loving friends on the Pi Day Facebook page, and find more Pi Day fun on PiDay.org.

[Image: Getty Images/Paul Almasy, @StarTrek Twitter]

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