Do Between 3 and 4 Transcendentally Irrational Things Day

No More Than 3.9, No Less Than 3.1


You may know March 14 by a different name - Pi Day. Pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference (the distance around the "edge") to its diameter (the distance from one edge to the other through the center).

Pi is a transcendental number. That means (try to stay with me here) that it's not a root (not to be confused with a square root) of any nonzero polynomial having rational (it can be a fraction) coefficients. (Yeah, I got lost too.)

Pi is also irrational. Rather than meaning it doesn't think straight when upset, this simply means you can't show it as a fraction. Sometimes people use 22/7 to equal Pi, but that's not exactly right. Often it's close enough though.

Now that you understand (sorta) what Pi is, it should make you as upset as it makes me.

Why? Because no one will ever know precisely the area or circumference of a circle. Both involve calculations that use Pi, which is a number we'll (probably) never know exactly.

Fortunately, to celebrate March 14 (in a way other than having a piece of pie), you just have to do between 3 and 4 transcendentally irrational things.

In this case, "transcendentally" and "irrational" both mean what you'd think they mean in non-mathematical terms. In other words, go out and do a few supremely crazy things today.

How you manage to do between 3 and 4 of them is left to you to determine.