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View Full Version : Happy 3.14159265 Day!


Blisspath
03-14-2008, 11:44 AM
Happy Pi day to all of us who have to use math in our everyday lives!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmXkDbGdD4Q
http://www.piday.org/
Jenny
03-14-2008, 12:35 PM
lol nice song, theres my math lesson for today!
rock_nog
03-14-2008, 12:40 PM
I used to know Pi to a little more than 80 digits. I memorized this poem - and the number of letters in each word corresponded to a digit of Pi. There's a funny glitch in the human brain - presumably, it would take a lot less space and effort to memorize just a string of numbers, but it's actually easier to learn a poem into which the numbers have been encoded. Makes sense, given that our brains are designed to process language, but it's still kinda funny.
Blisspath
03-14-2008, 01:11 PM
I used to know Pi to a little more than 80 digits. I memorized this poem - and the number of letters in each word corresponded to a digit of Pi. There's a funny glitch in the human brain - presumably, it would take a lot less space and effort to memorize just a string of numbers, but it's actually easier to learn a poem into which the numbers have been encoded. Makes sense, given that our brains are designed to process language, but it's still kinda funny.
Yeah mnemonics got me through anatomy. This is how I remembered the 12 cranial nerves
"On Old Olympus Towering Top A Finn And German Viewed A Hop"
1. Olfactory
2. Optic
3. Oculomotor
4. Trochlea
5. Trigeminal
6. Abducens
7. Facial
8. Vestibulocochlear(auditory)
9. Glossopharyngeal
10. Vagus
11. Accessory
12. Hypoglossal



and remember this is how Potsie learned about the heart:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_d0ykpzQgY
Dark Nation
03-14-2008, 04:31 PM
It's also sometimes known as S&BJ day. Sort of a Valentine's Day for men, or so I've read.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=March+14th
Feasul
03-14-2008, 07:21 PM
I'm sorry, but Steak and BJ day is a desecration of the Sacred Irrational Ratio. Bow down before the Great Number, blessed be His name, and apologize. You are not worthy of speaking the Name of Pi.
Hey, Pi kinda is like God, in that we are all incapable of speaking or knowing his "full" name cause it just goes on forever. That and he grants wishes. Math wishes.
rock_nog
03-14-2008, 09:06 PM
I love Pi. I find an almost aesthetic appeal to it. Wait, screw almost. There's just something about the way it goes on to infinity without ever repeating itself - and it's encoded into the very fabric of the universe. Not that Pi itself could ever be perfectly represented in the material universe, but still... Such an amazing number.

Anybody read the book "Contact," by Carl Sagan? I mean, sure, the movie was great, but damn, the book was awesome. I really loved the ending - see, in the book, the aliens didn't just say "Hi" and send Jodie Foster home (actually, she was one of five voyagers in the book), they actually chatted, and in the course of talking, the aliens mentioned that they had found messages encoded in Pi - in essence, messages from God.

Ah, and that ties into the thread in the Think Tank regarding books about science being inspiring. Making contact with an alien civilization - now that's inspiring, and it's science. I mean, trying to make contact, that was Jodie Foster's poetry, her art, her inspiration.

Final note - I recently found out that Carl Sagan talked like Agent Smith from the Matrix. I had read several of his books, but I had never seen his TV show or anything, and wow, that was just weird.
The_Amaster
03-14-2008, 09:24 PM
Ah, I remember learning about Pi and diameters and radii and all that in second grade. Good times, good times...
Man, I miss that school. Now I'm all waxing nostalgic.
Masamune
03-14-2008, 11:50 PM
I dunno about you guys, but I was much more pleased with the bacon and pepper cheese steak and dome I received earlier today. Fuck Pi.
MoonCheese
03-15-2008, 05:35 PM
Yesterday was also Albert Einstein's birthday. I live in his birth city.
Russ
03-15-2008, 05:48 PM
Yesterday was also Albert Einstein's birthday. I live in his birth city.
You live there? Awesome!
Beldaran
03-15-2008, 06:05 PM
Anybody read the book "Contact," by Carl Sagan? I mean, sure, the movie was great, but damn, the book was awesome. I really loved the ending - see, in the book, the aliens didn't just say "Hi" and send Jodie Foster home (actually, she was one of five voyagers in the book), they actually chatted, and in the course of talking, the aliens mentioned that they had found messages encoded in Pi - in essence, messages from God.

One of my all time favorite books! And way better than the movie, in my opinion. The end was amazing, I agree. Tripe thumbs up.