Yes, it's that time of year again. Pi Day. Say what? Yes, Pi Day. A day to celebrate the irrational number you learned about in grade school (obvi!). Here are five ways to celebrate if you, um, don't have anything better to do on a Wednesday night.
1.) Watch: If pop culture can embrace this mathematical constant, you can too! When an evil alien infiltrates the main computer system of Starship Enterprise in Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold," Spock commands the computer to "compute to the last digit the value of pi," ultimately destroying the alien entity. The psycho-thriller "Pi" follows numerologist Max Cohen as he is driven mad while attempting to understand the never-ending number and took home the 1998 Sundance Film Festival Award for Best Directing. If you're seeking something a little lighter, The Simpsons episode "Bye Bye Nerdie!" includes a shoutout to pi at a scientists' convention.
2.) Laugh: Impress your friends (or more likely alienate them indefinitely) with these fun pi jokes. Our favorite: What do you get when you divide the circumference of a Jack-o-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin pi!
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3.) Recite: Embrace a Pi Day mantra while reciting poems centered on the mystique of pi. Here's an excerpt from Polish poet and Nobel prize winner Wislawa Szymborska's tribute to pi:
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn't stop at the page's edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
4.) Listen: Pi Day may have found its anthem in Kate Bush's song "Pi," a 2005 single featuring the singer's soulful interpretation of the numerical value of Pi. Lyrics include: "Sweet and gentle sensitive man with an obsessive nature and deep fascination for numbers and a complete infatuation with the calculation." If you know today's date, you've got most of the chorus memorized already.
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5.) Smell: That's right, for just $72 (plus S+H) you too can smell like the masculine wonder that is pi. Givenchy's Pi Eau de Toilette is described as "a celebration of what makes a man seductive – his intelligence, courage, and contributions. Pi is more than a name, it's a symbol." Scent notes include mandarin, pine needles, rosemary, and calculator battery acid. Sexy!
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