March 14th is π Day.
The third month and the 14th day
relates to 3.14 which is π to three
significant figures.
Today's challenge is to memorise π to as many digits as you can before it fades completely.
3.141592653589793238462643383279
502884197169399375105820
974944592307816406286
208998628034825
3421170679
...
Though it is not necessary for students to memorise pi these days it is important that they are familiar with it and can use a rough approximation of it to estimate answers to questions. This exercise certainly helps students become familiar with pi but also uses pi as an arbitrary subject of this memory challenge.
Incidently, in the days when memorising pi was important people devised mnemonics such as “How I wish I could calculate pi” where the number of letters in each word represent the first seven digits of pi. Do you know any other mnemonics for remembering pi? Please let us know.
Here is the URL which will take them to Transum's Pi-Mon game about memorising pi.
Topics: Starter | Circles | Memory | Multiple Intelligences | Rounding
If you cut the crust off a pizza pie and lay it across four others. You’ll see that the crust spans a little more than 3 pies.
— Pranay Pathole (@PPathole) March 14, 2021
That’s Pi ˜ 3.14. pic.twitter.com/QrMIHTsTOZ
OK - One more smile: Coffie and Pi for math nerds pic.twitter.com/UfvQjdjhu5
— Paul A. Kirschner (@P_A_Kirschner) February 6, 2022
happy pi day everyonepic.twitter.com/5CClCZDShq
— yuki (@shotawatanabes) March 13, 2022
How did you use this starter? Can you suggest
how teachers could present or develop this resource? Do you have any comments? It is always useful to receive
feedback and helps make this free resource even more useful for Maths teachers anywhere in the world.
Click here to enter your comments.
Previous Day | This starter is for 14 March | Next Day
![]() |
Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops? This page was really designed for projection on a whiteboard but if you really want the students to have access to it here is a concise URL for a version of this page without the comments: Transum.org/go/?Start=March14 However it would be better to assign one of the student interactive activities below. |
|
Here is the URL which will take them to a related student activity.
How does the circumference of a glass compare to the height of the glass? You'll be surprised when you find out.
Your access to the majority of the Transum resources continues to be free but you can help support the continued growth of the website by doing your Amazon shopping using the links on this page. Below is an Amazon link. As an Amazon Associate I earn a small amount from qualifying purchases which helps pay for the upkeep of this website.
Educational Technology on Amazon
Transum Shop :: Laptops aid Learning :: School Books :: Tablets :: Educational Toys :: STEM Books
Where \(e\) is Euler's number, the base of natural logarithms (2.718...) and
\(i\) is the imaginary unit, the square root of negative one.
First discovered by the Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama in the 14th century
then adapted and published by Gottfried Leibniz around 1676.
The normal distribution is the most important continuous distribution in
statistics and the graph is sometimes more commonly referred to as the bell-shaped curve.
drop \(n\) needles of length \(L\) onto a plane ruled with parallel lines \(t\) units apart.
Count the number of needles, \(h\), that cross lines.
First posed by Mengoli in 1650 and solved by Euler in 1734 this is known as The Basel problem.
Even calculus has a use for pi as can be seen in this integration.
I didn't know you could find the factorial of a fraction.
Matt Parker's new book is all about our mistakes and misadventures with maths, geometry and all things numbers. Going from the mundane as to arguments about how many days in a week and the shape of footballs on signs, to famous errors and mistakes like the Space Shuttle disaster, London's walkie talkie building and the Millennium wobbly bridge. He explains how these problems occurred and in the case of some that they had occured in the past and we hadn't learnt from previous experience.
Originally a maths teacher from Australia, Matt Parker now lives in Godalming in a house full of almost every retro video-game console ever made. He is fluent in binary and could write your name in a sequence of noughts and ones in seconds. He loves doing maths and stand-up, often simultaneously.
You can find out more about this book here
Top Scottish teacher Chris Smith was interviewed on the Mr Barton podcast
and talked about his school's amazing Pi Day themes.
AsapSCIENCE presents The Pi Song (Memorize 100 Digits Of π) - Wonderful!
Type pi into the Google search engine page in your browser. Click the π symbol (I've drawn a red arrow pointing to it) and the game will begin. The value of pi will appear to ever increasing levels of accuracy which you then have to type back into the calculator. Your score will appear at the top left. How far can you get?
I am glad that Pi is pronounced to rhyme with eye!