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>it’s Pi Day, because 3/14 is the closest calendrical approximation we have to the decimal expansion of pi, π =3.1415927 This seems wrong. A quick check with a
by pedrocr 13y ago
>it’s Pi Day, because 3/14 is the closest calendrical approximation we have to the decimal expansion of pi, π =3.1415927
This seems wrong. A quick check with a spreadsheet tells me that July 22nd should be Pi Day as 22/7=3,14285 which is 0,00126 off whereas 3,14 is 0,00159 off :)
- danbruc 13y agoWith that interpretation 14/3 is 4.(6) or using 3/14 just 0.2(142857) and both are way off. But if we stop taking the date more or less as it but allow (arbitrary) computations on the components, we probably can get even closer than 22/7.
- pedrocr 13y agoMy comment was mostly in jest but I was indeed comparing two different interpretations 3/14 to mean 3.14 and 22/7 to mean the fraction. If anything the fraction interpretation seems more natural to me because of the forward slash. I'm curious how we could get closer than 22/7. With two numbers and a single operation (the slash) what would you do to get closer? 22/7 seems hard to beat.
- martin_b 13y agohttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/PiContinuedFraction.html http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PiContinuedFraction.html
- ColinWright 13y agoA phenomenally accurate fraction for pi is 355/113. It's hard to see how to get that to be interpreted as a date, though.
- namenotrequired 13y agoThat's because he happened to use a slash instead of a dot or comma. July 22nd is Pi Approximation Day.
- kej 13y agoIf you celebrate at 1:59 today, you get more accuracy than July 22 can provide. I also liked Ryan North's take on the matter: http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=955 http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=955
- pedrocr 13y agoThanks, that was a great comic.