Today was a pretty awesome day, it was pi day and I got retweeted by Edward Frenkel. The tweet was about a conversation I had with my students about pi and what it represents. What really surprised me was how deep our conversation got. It started when a student asked: Who invented pi? I saw this as a teachable moment and pounced on it.
"Well no one 'invented' pi, really, pi is something that was discovered".
Queu in the article written by Frenkel "Is the universe a simulation?". The thing that stuck out to me about this article was how clearly Frenkel articulated that the truths of Math are necessary and timeless. For example if no one in Greece 2000 years had discovered pi, someone else eventually would.
So that's what I said to my students.
"No one said 'let's make pi 3.14', it's just something that is what it is, someone discovered that it takes approximately 3 diameters and a bit more of one to make the circumference."
This then led to the last part of our conversation: Is pi something that is part of the "code" the Programmer used to create the simulation Frenkel talks about?
Anyways it was a conversation that left us with more questions than answers, but in in a good way, like in an awe and wonder kind of way.
Which leads to my last point. As much as I love pie, sometimes I do feel that this day should be less about pie and more about pi! The math pi. That's exciting in itself. As Brian Lehrer put it "Celebrating pi day with pies would be like celebrating Martin Luther King day with king size candy bars". I mean there really is no connection between pi and pies, unless of course you see the pie as a circle, have kids measure the circumference, measure the diameter, oh wait on second thought hold the pie, maybe there is a connection here.
"Well no one 'invented' pi, really, pi is something that was discovered".
Queu in the article written by Frenkel "Is the universe a simulation?". The thing that stuck out to me about this article was how clearly Frenkel articulated that the truths of Math are necessary and timeless. For example if no one in Greece 2000 years had discovered pi, someone else eventually would.
So that's what I said to my students.
"No one said 'let's make pi 3.14', it's just something that is what it is, someone discovered that it takes approximately 3 diameters and a bit more of one to make the circumference."
This then led to the last part of our conversation: Is pi something that is part of the "code" the Programmer used to create the simulation Frenkel talks about?
Anyways it was a conversation that left us with more questions than answers, but in in a good way, like in an awe and wonder kind of way.
Which leads to my last point. As much as I love pie, sometimes I do feel that this day should be less about pie and more about pi! The math pi. That's exciting in itself. As Brian Lehrer put it "Celebrating pi day with pies would be like celebrating Martin Luther King day with king size candy bars". I mean there really is no connection between pi and pies, unless of course you see the pie as a circle, have kids measure the circumference, measure the diameter, oh wait on second thought hold the pie, maybe there is a connection here.
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