It’s Pi Day in the United States. Our friends and fans abroad are invited to celebrate with us. ? is an irrational number used in geometry. In the USA, dates are generally written month first, then date, then year. So Tuesday, March 14 can be written 3.14.23. Inmuch of Europe, dates are written date first, then month, then year, or 14/03/23. But here in the US, it’s 3.14. Pi( ?) is a mathematical constant approximately equal to 3.14159. It is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. For everyday purposes, pi can be reduced to 3.14 or 22/7. As an irrational transcendental number pi goes on to infinity. Spock once stalled a computer on Star Trek by asking it to calculate pi to the last digit. This is physically impossible.
Tuesday, March 14, 2023 is also Albert Einstein’s 144th birthday. Because of this coincidence: Einstein’s birthday and the date matching the most common approximation of pi, UNESCO’s General Conference decided that March 14th should be designated the International Day of Mathematics.
Happy International Mathematics Day!
Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879, in Ulm, in what at the time was the German Empire. He moved to Switzerland in 1895. He gave up his German citizenship in 1896. He had been a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg. He attended school in Zurich. In 1901 he acquired Swiss citizenship. In 1905 he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich. In 1914, Dr. Einstein moved to Berlin to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences. He resumed German citizenship in 1917. He became a Prussian citizen. The Barnard Medal for Meritorious Service to Science is granted annually by Columbia University to a noted scientist. Einstein received the Barnard Medal in 1920. In 1921 he earned the Nobel Prize for physics.
In1933, Dr. Einstein happened to be visiting the United States when Hitler came to power in Germany. Being a German Jew, Dr. Einstein had the good sense to stay in the United States rather return to Europe. He changed citizenship again, becoming a U. S. citizen in 1940. In 1946, he was granted an honorary doctorate by Pennsylvania’s Lincon University, a historically black college, the alma mater of Lanston Hughes and Thurgood Marshall. In 1952, he was offered the position of President of Israel, but he politely declined. preferring to remain in the United States as a professor at Princeton to being head of state of Israel.
He died April 18, 1955, at the age of 76.
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Susan Macdonald is the author of the children's book "R is for Renaissance Faire", as well as 26 short stories, mostly fantasy in "Alternative Truths", "Swords and Sorceress #30", Swords &Sorceries Vols. 1, 2, & 5, "Cat Tails" "Under Western Stars", and "Knee-High Drummond and the Durango Kid". Her articles have appeared on SCIFI.radio's web site, in The Inquisitr, and in The Millington Star. She enjoys Renaissance Faires (see book above), science fiction conventions, Highland Games, and Native American pow-wows.
