For Math Geeks, This is Like the Week before Christmas - The Count-Down to PI Day, March 14, has Started

New York, NY (PRWeb) March 7, 2007 -- At Pi Headquarters, the countdown to Pi Day has started - the day when math geeks, students, and quants can have their Pi and eat it too.

March 14th Pi Day because the date is 3.14 - the first three digits of Pi.

And at Pi Day Ground Zero - the Pi Department at MathematiciansPictures.com - where the annual ritual Drop of The Giant Pi takes place on Pi Day March 14 at precisely 1:59 pm (3.14.1:59 - the first six digits of Pi), the Pi elves are busy making sure that every Pi lover receives, in time for Pi Day, their Pi-emblazoned tshirts, mugs, aprons, giant PI posters, and other Pi- araphernalia. Popular styles this year include Pizza Pi, Apple Pi, Cherry Pi, American Pi. Roman Numeral Pi, Binary Pi, Pi-in-the-Sky, and the classic 5000 Digits of Pi.

Pi Day is celebrated across the United States, and around the world, by students, teachers, professors, and even quants. It is the most visible demonstration of a growing international groundswell of interest in math and the sciences.

The fascination with Pi is old as the Bible, where the first references to the ratio between a circle and its diameter appear. Attempts to determine Pi's numerical value threads through the history of ancient cultures like the quest for a grail.

The mystery of Pi is more than skin deep. Pi is an "irrational" number, infinite in length, with no discernable pattern of repeating digits. A wall-size poster as big as a piece of plywood listing the first million digits of Pi is available at MathematiciansPicture.com --and even that giant slice is just a beginning.

The history of Pi is set out in annual Pi Day collectors posters snapped up like Faberge eggs by Pi afficionados, and issued by MathematiciansPictures.com. Last year's Pi Day collector poster, no longer available, featured Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician who was one of the first to accurately approximate the value of pi. He brilliantly used a technique which anticipated the calculus developed centuries later by competing mathematical geniuses Newton and Leibniz (to the eternal consternation of some high school students).

This year Leonhard Euler, the Swiss mathematician who popularized the use of the Greek letter pi to symbolize the ratio of the cicumference to the diameter, is featured on the Pi Day 2007 collectors poster.

Santa coming down the chimney, and the New Year's drop of the giant ball in Times Square are trifles compared to the anticipation surrounding the annual drop of the Giant Pi.

And for those who can't wait a whole year, the Pi-of-the-Month Club, the club of choice for true geeks, math mavens, and die-hard Pi people, offers a once-a-month fix of Pi.

Of course, the ultimate authority on Pi and Pi Day is the Giant Pi itself, currently preparing for its annual descent - the Giant Pi Drop - at MathematiciansPictures.com.

Given the lengthy history of Pi, its deep irrational nature, and its sense of international mystery, The Giant Pi was asked if there was any special moment that stood out. "Yes", quipped the Giant Pi, "the invention of Strawberry Pi - no calories".

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