Have you had your π Today?

Happy Pi Day everybody!

When I say Pi, I am, of course, referring to the date, which, if written like a decimal and ignoring the first two digits of the year reads like this: 3.1415.

This is an approximation of π, pronounced Pi, which is the Greek letter used to stand for the irrational number you get if you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter – supposing your circle is very round and your instruments are very good.

This year, Pi-loving geeks are going all-out to celebrate this Pi Day of the Century. Because, at 9:26:53 in the morning – whenever that was or will be where you are – it can be read as 3.141592653, which is Pi to nine decimal places. Yep, you get a whole second to celebrate. Well, I guess two seconds, if you celebrate in the AM and PM. I suppose you can celebrate the PM as well. I certainly won’t tell. After all, it’s a Saturday night!

Here in most of North America and elsewhere, we just lost an hour to Daylight Saving Time. In a sense, we are celebrating the Pi Second an hour early. Does that mean our Pi will be underdone?  Not to mention the whole time zone question.

Pi is a big deal. Books have been written about it. People have memorized it to hundreds or thousands of digits. There is a great Youtube video, available here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r3cEKZiLmg&feature=youtu.be, showing pi printed out to one million digits. The length of the paper is more than a mile long. They unrolled the paper on an airport runway. That video has had more than a million views. Here is a video showing how that video was made, which contains additional facts about Pi. That making-of video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99Welatppzk.

My good friend Steve Buchanan informs me that there is a movement afoot to take some of the importance off of π, a circle’s circumference divided by its diameter, and celebrating the irrational number beginning 6.28305… which represents the circumfrance of a circle divided by the circle’s radius. See the Youtube videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hhjsSN-AiU.    

Also, see “Pi is Wrong” at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ.

This movement give that number, equal to 2π, the name of the Greek letter Tau – τ. There are a lot of reasons for putting emphasis on Tau rather than Pi, among them is the fact that many commonly used formulas use the radius of a circle, rather than the diameter.

So, will we celebrate Tau Day on 6/18 (June 18)? Why not?

Have you had your π Today? Maybe τ should wait for a few months and enjoy twice as much.

However, Pi has historical relevance, and I don't think it will be unseated from its place of importance in the minds of mathematicians and nonmathematicians anytime soon. 

For the reason stated above today is Pi day of the century. Or is it?

I would like to point out that next year's Pi day can be read 3.1416. That is as far as most people who use the number in calculations bother to travel right of the decimal point. Next year we can have the Pi day of the century -- not just for a second (or two seconds twelve hours apart) but all day!

Think about it. You have an entire year!

When We Said "Neglected" We Meant It. But, about "The Interview"

Now you know the meaning of "Dan's Neglected Blog."

So, it's not like nothing happened in 2014. But, somehow, I didn't find time to do even one post. 

There is so much I could have commented on: The relative success of Obamacare, the Ice Bucket Challenge, the bloodbath that was the 2014 midterm elections. 

I am sorry that all of these subjects went neglected. Maybe I'll pick one or two and write about them in the future ― as a matter of fact, you can probably bet on it.

But, the one development that came closest to making me beat down the inertia causing me to not post was the hoopla over the comedy The Interview.   

Somebody hacked Sony's computes and stole and distributed gigabytes of secret, confidential, and personal data, as revenge for Sony Pictures' producing and planned distribution of the film ― not a critically-acclaimed documentary, or controversial work of art, or anything of that earthshaking variety ― but a comedy starring Seth Rogen and James Franco. Just a little comedy about the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who seems to lack the capacity to step back and laugh at himself, the way the rest of the world spends so much us its time doing.

Should Sony have been storing so much information about its employees and former employees on its servers? Probably not, but that is beside my present point.

Threats ― threats of the nasty terrorist-style variety ― were made against moviegoers and theater-owners who dared show the movie. Corporations controlling  theater chains and shopping malls  made the decision to forgo, not only the Christmas Day release of what would have certainly been a record-breaking opening, but showing the movie at all. It still was presented at a few independent theaters and has been put up for online streaming. So far, no North Korean missiles  have hit anyone's Netflix streaming device ― unless such streaming device just happened to be floating in the middle of the ocean, perhaps thrown overboard by an angry cruise passenger who didn't realize how much the cruise ship's WiFi costs or how creakingly slow it is ― when North Korea launched one of its less-than-spectacular missile tests. It could have happened at some time.

And to think, all of this ruckus could have been avoided if Sony had quickly called back the film and re-shot parts of it and reedited the finished product to include frequent shots of Dennis Rodman. Had they had the forsight to do that, Kim Jong Un would not have known what to do. Why his little head might have exploded, leaving that fez-like hairdo (or hairdon't) of his to spin wildly into the air ― possibly landing in the middle of the ocean on top of a floating Roku box. 

The one thing that I find most interesting about this controversy is the total lack of controversy among people I know who generally can't agree on anything else.

Nearly everyone I have talked to said they would have at least strongly considered taking some time out of their Christmas day activities to support Free Speech by seeing The Interview. This goes for people who love Seth Rogen and for those who hate his raunchy comedies.

President Obama criticized Sony and the movie chains for backing down to the terrorists and almost nobody criticized him for stepping up and making the statement. This may be the first thing Obama has done that has not caused the red states to call for his impeachment. We were united as a country on the issue of freedom of speech.

is this what we need as a nation? More attacks from annoying little dictators on our basic rights to make us stand together?

Kim Jong Un may have done us a favor of sorts. A very small favor. A very small favor with a funny hairstyle.