Jan Szewczyk (Y7) - Pi Day

Once again we have reached the point in the year when the energy in maths classrooms is buzzing and everyone is filled with excitement. Although this always feels like it comes way faster than we think, we are just about a week away from the international day of celebration of Pi. Pi day is celebrated on the 14th of March annually - a date taken from the American way to write dates being Month, Day, Year. When writing the 14th of March using this system, it becomes 3.14, the first three digits of the phenomenon that we use very frequently in our maths lessons.

The symbol for Pi (π) has been in use for over 250 years now, and although we have found over twenty-two billion digits, we will never know the full number, as it is infinite, therefore we will also never find out the true accurate circumference of a circle. The first time Pi was celebrated was in 1988, at the San Francisco Science Museum. At Westminster Academy, we host a large assembly for years 7 and 8 to learn about and celebrate the history of Pi and also to compete against each other to see who can memorise the most digits of Pi, the record currently set a staggering 314 - this number was specifically chosen to represent the first three digits of Pi.

Throughout the past week each maths class has been holding mini-competitions to send forward a couple of students from each class to compete against the whole year group. On the day of the competition, next Thursday, the whole year group will gather in the green room to watch the spectacle that is put on by the amazing students that recite over 150 digits of Pi every year. Arguably the most famous part of this event is the reward given to the student that can recite the most digits of Pi in each year group. These students are allowed to ‘pie’ a teacher of their choice ..

The first estimate of Pi that I could find was by the Babylonians in 1900-1680 BCE, giving Pi an initial value of 3, then it was refined to 3.125. It then took thousands of other mathematicians over thousands of years to refine it to what we have today. So, the next time you click the Pi button on your calculator you can think about the immense amount of effort and work that was put into the creation of this phenomenon!

Jan Szewczyk (Y7)

Maths subject prefect