# Happy "PI Day" Everyone **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 14, 2023, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145 "2023-03-14T08:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/21 "2023-03-15T00:06:47Z")
My husband was commenting this morning that 22 July would be a more fitting Pi Day. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/22 "2023-03-15T00:14:08Z")
Well, approximately. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/23 "2023-03-15T00:17:22Z")
Logically, it would be better to celebrate Pi day on 23rd July. Because both Pi and 23rd July are approximately 22/7. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/24 "2023-03-15T00:39:21Z")
Maybe the 355th day of the 113th month? ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/25 "2023-03-15T00:44:54Z")
Homemade pie on Mar 14th: it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law. [![Google Photos](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/0YXqrznXJ3x5Zl9HmZaZ3Rm1v3g2sIRjVo7juE1oHFLBQmofBe81qqgIgcexJBXuTl0z_tkSOrobTSuoCifk_4m6pZao4w4rZLMCsWakAzO8TSsetkglJxLHjOeQ4x6qM_x9TuDuHEE=w600-h315-p-k "New item by David Metsky") ](https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZahHQjieJJeRRfBQA) ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/26 "2023-03-15T02:23:55Z")
Did you make that pi? It looks very delicious. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/27 "2023-03-15T10:06:27Z")
That does look really good! For lunch today (well it’s now yesterday) I had pizza pie. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/28 "2023-03-15T12:15:50Z")
Yes, I make apple pies on π day. It’s what I like the most and the easiest to make. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/29 "2023-03-15T12:28:48Z")
> [@Seanette](#): > > My husband was commenting this morning that 22 July would be a more fitting Pi Day.   Where the slash is commonly used in computer programming as a division operator, 3/14 is 0.214…, which is nowhere near Ï€.   But if we use the European date convention, day first and then month, the 22 July is 22/7 which equals 3.1428… which is much closer to Ï€.   I wonder if there’s any other date, any combination of one number in the range 1-12, and another in the range 1-31, where dividing one by the other gets you even closer than that to Ï€ than 22/7 does.  Probably not. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/30 "2023-03-15T12:52:11Z")
> [@Bob\_Blaylock](#): > > I wonder if there’s any other date, any combination of one number in the range 1-12, and another in the range 1-31, where dividing one by the other gets you even closer than that to Ï€ than 22/7 does. Probably not.   Verified, via quick experiment in Excel.  Of all the possible permutations of any number in the range 1-2, and any other number in the range 1-31, either divided by the other, there is only one in which the difference between the result and Ï€ is less than 0.002, and that is 22÷7. [PiDate.xlsx](https://boards.straightdope.com/uploads/short-url/sabZUpTnitUSESSJlLYzKLCjPtS.xlsx) (25.3 KB) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/31 "2023-03-15T13:20:38Z")
There hasn’t been a Pi day since 1592. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/32 "2023-03-15T13:37:44Z")
Was there a pi day in 1592? The United States is the only country that writes dates month first, and it didn’t exist then. The origins of the U.S. convention seem to be uncertain. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/33 "2023-03-15T17:57:37Z")
3.14 **1592** ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/34 "2023-03-15T18:05:02Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > The United States is the only country that writes dates month first Is the US really the _only_ country? It doesn’t seem like _that_ counterintuitive a way of writing things. There are plenty of other situations where we write the larger unit first (hours:minutes, feet inches, etc.). ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/35 "2023-03-15T18:08:19Z")
There are certainly big-endians that go y-m-d, like China, and there a few countries that are inconsistent. But the U.S. is the only mandatory middle-endian. > **[Date format by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country)** > > The legal and cultural expectations for date and time representation vary between countries, and it is important to be aware of the forms of all-numeric calendar dates used in a particular country to know what date is intended. > Writers have traditionally written abbreviated dates according to their local custom, creating all-numeric equivalents to day–month formats such as "14 March 2023" (14/03/23, 14/03/2023, 14-03-2023 or 14.03.2023) and month–day formats such as "March 14, 2023" (03/14/23 or... ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/36 "2023-03-15T19:09:16Z")
Every damn year it’s exactly the same thing. I don’t notice it’s Pi day until it’s too late in the day to score any pie, and I promise myself I’ll get two pies to make up for it, on Tau day. And most years I forget that. One year when I proposed to a friend we go out to a restaurant that serves pie, on Tau day, they only had one kind left. This is just not working out for me. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/37 "2023-03-15T19:22:25Z")
> [@Napier](#): > > I don’t notice it’s Pi day until it’s too late You could make a cherry pie and stab it 23 times to celebrate the Ides of March. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/38 "2023-03-15T19:29:28Z")
That seems a bit Brutal. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/39 "2023-03-15T19:53:14Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > You could make a cherry pie and stab it 23 times to celebrate the Ides of March. To be fully authentic is needs to be a Caeser salad. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2023, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145/40 "2023-03-15T21:43:38Z")
PI = 3.141592653589793 (Good enough for NASA accuracy) Let’s suppose we draw a circle with a diameter of 1 kilometer. That means, using a pi value of 3.141, the circumference is accurate to a value of plus or minus 1 meter. Using a pi value of 3.141592 the circumference accuracy has increased to ± 1 millimeter. Going to pi = 3.141592653, we now have a circle whose circumference is accurate to ± 1 micrometer. Using 15 decimal digits of pi, the circle’s circumference is now accurate to ± 1 picometers. (A picometer is one trillionth of a meter.) The diameter of the largest atom (cesium) is about 520 picometers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-pi-day-everyone/981145.md?page=3)