Archive: Around Town

On the May 14, 1949 Burns and Allen Show Gracie Allen wanted to adopt child star Mickey Rooney, because she felt she could give him a better education.  Mickey told her he was studying algebra in school.  "Say something in algebra, then," Gracie challenged.  "Um..." Rooney replied, "Pi r squared."  Gracie corrected him: "Pie r round," she said.


Wednesday (Pi) was square and round at Mathnasium of Ithaca in the Village of Lansing as students celebrated Pi Day.  Pi Day is celebrated on March 14, because the date 3/14 is the same as the first three digits of Pi: 3.14.  This year Mathnasium Director Ewan Barr made it a delicious learning experience Wednesday with a cake, cupcakes, and a Pizza .

"Let's take fractions and make it fun," Barr says. "Normally when you order a pizza it's cut into 8 slices or 1/8ths but this time we had them cut it into 16 slices or 1/16ths. So each kid takes a slice of pizza and we have them tell us what fractional part of the pizza they have on their plate. The next step is to ask them what fractional part is left in the box! Wow…there's math in pizza…go figure!"

Pi (3.1415926535) has fascinated mathematicians since it was first used by William Jones in 1706.  It is an endless number that continues infinitely without repeating.  Computers have calculated Pi to over a trillion digits.

In 1949 the then top of the line ENIAC 70 computer calculated Pi to 2,037 decimal places.  The task took the computer 70 hours. 

The current world record holder for reciting Pi to the most number of decimal places is China's Chao Lu.  In 2005 he recited Pi to 67,890 decimal places.

The best known use of Pi is to calculate the area of a circle in the equation A = r².  To calculate the area of an ellipse you use A = r₁ r₂.

Barr placed math problem sheets next to the food inviting kids to calculate the fraction of pizza they were eating, or the percentage of chocolate to vanilla.  'Some chocolate cupcakes, some vanilla. What fractional part of all of the cupcakes are chocolate?'  The fractions changed as the treats were consumed.

Barr says Mathnasium of Ithaca will be launching a number of 'Visualize Math' Camps this summer to show kids more math in everyday use.

"You see Math really is everywhere and if we can excite our students to visualize math in everything they do, we might just be amazed how excited they can be about math when we make it make sense," Barr says.

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