Happy Pi Day

Happy Pi Day to the Maths geeks of America. For today is March 14 or 3.14 in US date format.

If you are in San Francisco, swing by the Exploratorium, join the school kids and "gather around the Pi Shrine to perform pi-related rites and eat ritual food - will it be apple pie or pizza pie or just pie in the sky? - in honor of this special number. Sing Pi Day songs, bead a pi string, and circumnavigate the pi shrine. It's all part of Pi Day celebrations, which culminate, appropriately enough, on March 14 at 1:59pm. That's the third month, the fourteenth day, at 1:59pm, corresponding to the first 6-digits of Pi."

Can't get there? Celebrate if you must at the 'Splo, the online version of the Exploratorium on Second Life. Or check out this nice piece on Pi and Pi Day by the AP's Erin McClam. We were particularly taken by "average pi Nut Mike Keith, a software engineer in Virginia, who has written possibly the world's longest and hardest mnemonic, a poem to pi, or "piem".

"To say that it is a something to behold is an understatement: It is nearly 4,000 words long - and the length in letters of each word corresponds to pi's digits," write McClam.

And while you're at it, dive in to Kate Bush's Pi, from her most recent album Aerial. Her rendition is mathematically flawed, but none the less spirited for that.

One more thing: take some time out to pity the poor Europeans who must make do with 22 July, or Pi Approximation Day. And raise a glass to Albert Einstein, who would have been 128 today, if he were still alive. ®