Tag Archives: Pi Day

Pi versus WHO

Pi recently took a page from Singapore’s only ruling party’s decades-long successful template how to stay in power perpetually, with quasi-zero public protests, strikes, and riots.

Will Pi win her viral legal case against the World Health Organization (WHO)? Millions of math teachers worldwide are unspokenly hoping that the WHO won’t alienate or betray Pi, just as it did for the marginalized and unrecognized variant Xi.

Would Pi be vindicated for unfairly being discriminated by those who’re playing politics to prevent her from being admitted as a bona-fide corona variant worthy of WHO’s recognition?

Imagine how excited math educators globally would be if Pi won her legal case against the WHO.

Come Pi Day or Pi Approximation Day, if the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet were officially declared a WHO-approved variant by then, schools and universities would be electrified in conducting an eclectic mix of pi talks and lectures to promote Pi’s ambivalent “murderous” new status.

I, for one, have started to work on Murderous Pi—the title of a math e-book to celebrate Pi’s evolution from a humble mathematical constant to a proud corona variant, which would be plagued with devilish or wicked problems on mathematics’s most beloved irrational number.

Are you looking forward for Pi’s long-overdue recognition by WHO’s health professionals in the Lunar New Year of the Rabbit?

Until she’s virally credited for her fatally mixed impact on earthlings before she’d rest in peace to make way for Rho and Sigma, who’re lining up to be WHO-recognized, Pi’s rejection would be perceived as an irrational [mathematical & viral] injustice or betrayal, whose aftermath paranoiac behaviors among math educators and virologists worldwide could potentially be unpeaceful, to say the least.

Like the “infidel” Zero, who’s ostracized by the Church Fathers of yesteryear, may the “agnostic” or “devilish” Pi be vindicated as she longs to gain formal approval to be in the company of fellow corona variants.

© Yan Kow Cheong, January 17, 2023

Will Pi Be WHO-Recognized?

Life of Pi and Pi of Life

For the majority of us who aren’t born or blessed with a mathematical or symbol-minded brain, but nevertheless appreciate the austere beauty of mathematics, writing about mathematics and math education is the second best thing we’d do to console ourselves that we needn’t be first-rate mathematicians to enjoy the language of science and technology, or to appreciate the science of patterns.

Some mathematicians write novels under a pseudonym to avoid any suspicion from their faculty bosses; others compose limericks and haikus as a creative outlet to showcase their hidden poetic talents. And for the rest of us who are neither novelists nor poets, maybe submitting some definitions to Urban Dictionary, by coining new mathematical words, or redefining old ones, could be the first step to activating that atrophied right part of our brain, which is allegedly responsible for creativity.

On this Pi Day, let me share with fellow math educators eleven approved definitions related to the irrational and transcendental pi. Don’t ask me how many times I got rejected and needed to resubmit some of these definitions again, before the Urban Dictionary editors decided to approve them.

Pre-Pi Day

Pre-Pi Day seems to have been serially downvoted and subsequently deleted to prevent digital abuse, because the approved entry can no longer be accessed.

Be Rejection Proof

Rejection isn’t failure. We keep refining or redefining any rejected definitions until the editors have zero excuses to reject the resubmitted entries. I wished I’d share some recipe for these approved pi definitions, but any attempt to offer some tips to increase a math educator’s chances of getting these math words or terms approved would probably be futile, to say the least.

Over time, although I’ve managed to reduce the odds of rejection, however, some submissions inevitably end up in the little red book of the mean editors—maybe these word doctors had a bad day, or simply because I was submitting some “mathematical crap” that caused me to receive emails like the following:

Urban Dictionary – Pi-rated was not published

Thanks for your definition of Pi-rated!

A few volunteer editors read your definition and decided to not publish it. Don’t take it personally!

Pi-rated
The term to describe any faux facts about the irrational number pi.

On Pi Day, our teacher tricked us with some pi-rated math:
pi is a rational number (22/7);
pi has a different value on the moon that on earth;
pi has a value of three in the Bible.

It’s never too late to be mathematically playful, by playing your part in submitting some irreverent mathematical definitions to enliven your math lessons.

A blessed Pi Day to everyone.

© Yan Kow Cheong, March 14, 2019.

Pi Day in Singapore

Thousands of students around the world celebrate Pi Day today, but local math students in Singapore can only dream of being part of this annual mathematical event. Singapore math students, teachers, and parents don’t (and can’t) celebrate Pi Day, as long as they officially follow the British style of writing their dates (DD/MM/YY).

What makes matters worse is that this year, Pi Day falls on the first day of the one-week school break, which makes it almost impossible for hardcore math teachers, who want to buck the calendrical trend, to get their students excited about the properties and beauties of the number Pi.

Until Singapore switches to the American style of writing dates (MM/DD/YY), which may not happen, at least during my lifetime, however, this shouldn’t prevent us from evangelizing the gospel of Pi among the local student population.

Here are seven e-gifts of the holy Pi, which I started musing about 314 minutes ago on this Pi Day.

Pi Day vs. Abacus Day

  

A 14-Month Year for Singapore ONLY!

  

Where Are You in Pi?

  

Heavenly Pi

  

The Numerology (or Pseudoscience) of Pi

  

In Remembrace of the Late Singapore PM 

  

Biblical Pi vs. Mathematical Pi

   

Happy Pi Day!

© Yan Kow Cheong, March 14, 2016.