Italian
Since 1988, every year on March 14th the International Pi Day is celebrated and since 2019 this date has also become the International Day of Mathematics
The occasion is the anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth in 1879. So someone thought of associating the celebration of Pi with that of mathematics.
The letter Pi in Greek
The Pi Greco is the Greek letter with which the word perimeter (περίμετρος) begins and indicates precisely the ratio between the length of a circumference and its diameter. It was defined by Archimedes as 3.14 to simplify the calculations of that time, already done by the Babylonians and Egyptians, but in reality it is an irrational number, with infinite digits after the decimal point, which never repeat regularly.
Pi Greco = 3.14
March 14 was chosen because the Anglo-Saxon calendar puts the month, 03 March, before the day, 14, and today is indeed 3.14!
It is interesting to consider how mathematics, the exact science par excellence, is represented, on the day dedicated to it, by an irrational and approximate number, as if to want to encompass in its science everything, understandable and not.
Archimedes of Syracuse
But in reality Pi Greco is much more. It is an astrophysical, electromagnetic, astronomical presence, it is a ratio that we also find in shells, in spirals, in DNA. Its “inventor”, Archimedes of Syracuse, the greatest and most modern mathematician of antiquity, has left us studies on spirals, on burning mirrors and on levers. These studies are still a source of inspiration for scientists all over the world, starting precisely from Pi Greco. https://ilnuovoterraglio.it/pi-greco-day-e-matematica-lo-strano-binomio/
So, Pi is to Archimedes as Mathematics is to Einstein. This can be written in the form of a formula as: Pi : Archimedes = Mathematics : Einstein.
Pi Day
What do you do on Pi Day? On the first Pi Day, in 1988, a circular parade was organized around a museum and there was a sale of cakes decorated with the decimal digits of pi, because pi, in English, sounds the same as pie, the typical dessert in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Over the years, in mathematics departments around the world, there is an opportunity to organize parties and math competitions. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives recognized March 14th as the official Mathematics Day, with the aim of encouraging young people to study this science.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German mathematical physicist, naturalized Swiss and American. He is generally considered the most important physicist of the 20th century, known to the general public for the Theory of Relativity. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. His most famous formula is E = mc2, which means energy equals mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light.
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany, to non-practicing Jewish parents. He passed away at the age of 76 in the United States, in Princeton, on April 18, 1955. https://biografieonline.it/biografia-albert-einstein.
