When most people think of pie, they probably think of a Mcdonald’s apple pie or a nice key lime pie; yet, when I think of “Pi” I think of 3.14159286… Yet what do those numbers even mean?

The concept of Piwas was discovered in 2000 BCE by Babylonian mathematicians, who first calculated the area of a circle. It wasn’t until later where the concept of Piwas fully defined. Archimedes, a Greek mathematician, was the original “founder” of Piin 250 BCE, yet the greek symbol of Pi wasn’t used until the 1700s!

Did you know that since the exact value of pi can never be calculated, we can never find the accurate area or circumference of a circle? Today, Pi is used all the time in high school math classes and in multiple different formulas. There is even a day dedicated to Pi, March 14. It could also be June 22 because the original form of pi written as a fraction is 22/7. March 14 (or 3.14) is a day that many companies use the concept of Pi to give various discounts to customers. Blaze Pizza has a deal where each 11-inch pizza costs $3.14, and BJs is offering a $4 cookie on Pi Day!

Some YLHS students enjoy the mathematical aspect of Pi Day more than the food aspect. Kylie Tsai (12) comments, “I really enjoy learning, and I love how there is a day dedicated to math! It is one of my favorite subjects, and I am so happy that we are taking the time to appreciate how important math is in today’s society.” 

Another student, Avery Yang (10), says that her favorite part of Pi Day is all of it. “Both the deals and the history are my favorite parts of Pi Day because I can eat my favorite foods while learning about the history of one of the most important symbols in math!” 

My personal favorite part of Pi Day would have to be the deals that we get. I look forward to going to Blaze to get a pizza or BJ’s to get a pizza. The area left of that pizza will be 0, and I don’t need Pi to calculate that!