From San Francisco to New York, in museums, universities, classrooms and in the privacy of one’s own home, (and of course on Second Life), people are celebrating Pi. It’s the 21st anniversary of the celebration of Pi Day, an international holiday born at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. The number is Pi, 3.1415926535…ad infinitum. It’s today’s date and the starting time, the number you get when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter, and it cannot be expressed as a fraction. It continues forever.
This is the worst Pi Day ever.
How on earth can it be international. The Americans are the only country on the planet that use the date format 3.14 everybody else goes from smallest to largest day, month , year, 14.03.09. And no arguments about, that’s how its said. I say a quarter past four, but I don’t write it 15:4.
The date format, and Fahrenheit temperatures, Come on USA, join the rest of the planet in the 20th century at least. !
Oh, and its always confusing to work out what happened on the 9th of November !
I for one, am happy to enjoy an American Pi.
I’ll celebrate pi Day when I get around to it.
I always sucked in maths. Calculus used to give me nightmares. Damn!
And pie to you as well
Uh… it’s actually Steak and BJ day. But, for you sexless nerds, I guess you can have “Pi” day…
Chicago Rare please!
And, what’s Apple Pi without a fair-sized dollop of premium vanilla ice cream? Pi a la commode!
Scott: on March 14th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
How on earth can it be international….
Pulp Fiction (1994) Quentin Tarantino – LE Big Mac, Royal with Cheese.
Mmmmmmmm, pi…..
10,
You do mean a la mode, right? Commode is something COMPLETELY different.
Now all you need is e^(i*pi) day, and we can start all over again. Who says you can’t have your pi and eat it too? WARNING — Don’t try this on Groundhog Day.
BTW, nice pic, Hop!
Scott
Nothing wrong with the Fahrenheit temperature scale. People live most of their lives between 0 and 100 degrees. When the temperature is outside of that range there are terms that cover the situation. They are “Damn Cold” and “Damn Hot”
Celsiusians must live between -17.777777777777….. and 37.7777777777….. Now that is inconvenient. Also when Celsius set the scale up originally water boiled at 0 and froze at 100. Celsius was just a bit wacky.
One thing that Fahrenheitics and Celsiusians can agree on is that -40 is -40 and damn cold.
“(and of course on Second Life)”
People still go to Second life?
# 16 Ah_Yea said:
“(and of course on Second Life)”
People still go to Second life?
You ought to _see_ the lag when there’s a sale on!
15,
*sigh*. You do NOT live through 9 decimal places in Celsius.
http://xkcd.com/526/
XKCD helped all you imperialists out…
I do know that I can convert up the metric scale with nothing by a multiple of 10.
[Commenter came to his senses and posted the URLs correctly. – ed.]
Arrrrrgh!
A Celsius weather forecast
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JuLCHZJ1y00
The light brown is the sunshine?
A Fahrenheit weather forecast
http://youtube.com/watch?v=iSojCt_9kBQ&NR
See twice as precise.
19,
So, if I’m to understand you, when it’s 78F or 79F outside, Americans are able to distinguish between the two by the 1F difference? So, when it’s 78F you wear polyester jackets and 79F DEMANDS wool because it’s so precise? Right.
Why do Americans LOVE their Imperial British measurement system so much? Is it because you really wish that King George was still around? Hmmmm… now that I think about it, it probably is! Why else would GWBush get two terms?
Simple, we like it because we’re used to it.
Named
Well other than a lower resolution what is the advantage of Celsius?
23,
Measures of temperature are pretty arbitrary… Set any scale you like. But for reference, 0C freezing point, 100C boiling point of water makes perfect sense. They are really the only extremes that you and I and 99.99999999% of humanity will face everyday. 32 and 212 are pretty nonsensical.
As for the rest of metric… its a beautiful system. Simple. Precise.
I do not think anyone will be wearing wool or and material of jackets when it is 78 or 79 F. That is shorts and T-shirt weather, although 78 might be a tad too cold to wear shorts. Temperatures 79 and above are shorts weather though.
It is easier to tell the temperature in F. In C, you have to multiply by 5/9 or 9/5 and remember if you are supposed to add or subtract 32 to get the right temperature.
# 21 Named said, on March 15th, 2009 at 11:15 am
So, if I’m to understand you, when it’s 78F or 79F outside, Americans are able to distinguish between the two by the 1F difference? So, when it’s 78F you wear polyester jackets and 79F DEMANDS wool because it’s so precise? Right.
It is easier to tell the temperature in C. In F, you have to multiply by 9/5 or 5/9 and remember if you are supposed to add or subtract 32 to get the right temperature.
FTFY.
One more Fahrenheit post.
Originally Fahrenheit chose three points of calibration for his scale.
O degrees F was the temperature of a mixture of ice, water and a salt. Probably the coldest temp achievable in a lab at that time.
32 degrees F was the temp of an ice and water mixture.
The third point was the body temperature of a healthy person. He set this as 96 degrees F.
It has been said that he used Mrs. Fahrenheit as the 96 degree standard.
So Fahrenheit’s scale was based on how hot his wife was.
Later the scale was changed to have 180 degrees between 32F and boiling water. This was probably done because Mrs. Fahrenheit got tired of having her temperature taken all of the time. The end result was that normal body temp is now 98.6F.