Pi Day
NEW YORK (Reuters) - For math nerds, Monday was a day when they could have their Pi and eat it, too.
"It's Pi Day because the date is 3/14 -- the first three digits of Pi," said Howard Greenspan, who oversaw a Pi Day Party online with a Pi drop at MathematiciansPictures.com, a Web site that sells Pi paraphernalia.
"This is the perfect holiday to celebrate in cyberspace," Greenspan told Reuters in a telephone interview from Toronto.
"We dropped the giant Pi online at 1:59 p.m. Eastern time," Greenspan said, noting that "3.14159 are the first six digits of Pi."
For those who flunked math, here's a clue: Pi is "that infernal and literally never-ending number that represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter," Greenspan said. It takes its name from the Greek letter Pi.
Greenspan, who swears he is not related to U.S. Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites), said another Pi drop was planned online at 1:59 p.m. Pacific time.
So many people clicked on the Web site to watch the first Pi drop that the server was overwhelmed briefly. Instant replays were run. (See: http://www.mathematicianspictures.com)
