The two events are actually unrelated with Pi Day celebrated today as it is 3/14 (if you write dates like an American) and 3.14 are the first three significant digits of Pi.
It just so happens that the great physicist was born in Ulm, Germany on this date in 1879, to make this one of the most cerebral days of the year.
The first Pi Day happened is thought to have been marked in 1988, organised by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium – involving a lot of people eating fruit pies.
π – the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter – was first used by Welsh mathematician Gareth Ffowc Roberts in 1706. Jones realised Pi never ended and could not be expressed precisely, which is why the symbol for Pi was created. It is thought Pi is called as so as it denotes a ‘periphery’ or ‘perimeter’.
Most, however, just choose to marvel at the glorious number and all its complexities.
Happy #PiDay! An irrational number that can't be represented as a fraction & the 1st letter of the Greek for perimeter. Einstein's birthday!pic.twitter.com/w2fXZd3CPs
Whatever your feelings on the number, it is well worth saying Happy Birthday to Albert today.
His achievements are too varied and extensive to list here, but you will probably know him best as a Nobel Prize winning physicist and for ‘the world’s most famous equation’ E = mc2.
For more information on the great man, have a look here.
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