In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb: Pi Day Vocabulary: March 14, or 3.14

Learn these words relating to pi, the mathematical constant and the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet. Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th, or 3/14, the date that corresponds to the first (and most well-known) digits in the decimal form of Pi.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. approximation
    a rough calculation of quantity or degree or worth
    The earliest written approximations of pi are 3.125 in Babylon (1900-1600 B.C.) and 3.1605 in ancient Egypt (1650 B.C.).
    - Scientific American
  2. calculate
    make a mathematical computation
    Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits.
    - The Seattle Times
    To calculate is to do some arithmetic, like if you calculated that you were three miles from home or owed twenty dollars for dinner plus tip. Besides math, this word is used metaphorically for other kinds of figuring out. Often, calculating is a synonym for thinking. In that figurative sense, calculate has a bit of a heartless connotation. A ruthless, severe person can be described as cold and calculating.
  3. circumference
    the length of the closed curve of a circle
    It devotes a chapter to classical mathematician Archimedes, including his “heroic” calculations of π, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.
    - Nature
  4. constant
    a number representing a quantity with a fixed value
    He reluctantly admitted that pi, the constant approximately equal to 3.14, has this one advantage over tau, a number he introduced to replace it.
    - Scientific American
  5. decimal
    a proper fraction whose denominator is a power of 10
    Humans have now calculated the never-ending number to 31,415,926,535,897 (get it?) — about 31.4 trillion — decimal places. It’s a Pi Day miracle!
    - ABC News
  6. diameter
    the length of a straight line through the center of a circle
    ...39 digits are sufficient to perform most cosmological calculations, because that’s the accuracy necessary to calculate the circumference of the observable universe to within one atom’s diameter.
    - Scientific American
  7. digit
    one of the elements that form a system of numeration
    People have enjoyed memorising the digits in pi since at least the beginning of the 19th century. Back then only a few hundred digits were known, so it was barely more of a challenge than memorising a long poem.
    - The Guardian
  8. formula
    a group of symbols that make a mathematical statement
    To Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 400–350 BCE) goes the honour of being the first to show that the area of a circle is proportional to the square of its radius. In today’s algebraic notation, that proportionality is expressed by the familiar formula A = πr2.
    - Britannica
  9. fraction
    a small part or item forming a piece of a whole
    There can't be any exact fraction for π: the mathematician, J H Lambert, proved this in the 1760s.
    - The Guardian
    A fraction is a part of something. In math, that means a number such as ¼ or ²²⁄₇. When people use the word more loosely, it usually refers to a tiny part of something: just an itty-bitty bit. If a fraction of voters support blowing up the moon, that doesn’t indicate a ton of support, which is understandable, because what did the moon do to anybody?
  10. geometry
    the mathematics of points and lines and curves and surfaces
    Mathematically, pi is less a child of geometry than an early ancestor of calculus, the branch of mathematics, devised in the 17th century, that deals with anything that curves, moves or changes continuously.
    - The New York Times
  11. infinite
    having no limits or boundaries in time or space
    The first written description of an infinite series that could be used to compute pi was laid out in Sanskrit verse by Indian astronomer Nilakantha Somayaji around 1500 A.D.
    - Scientific American
    An infinite number — like pi — has no end. You could never get to the end of it, even if you kept counting all day, every day, for the rest of your life. An infinite number, like numbers themselves, never ends, man. The noun form is infinity, which can apply to anything without an end or limit.
  12. irrational
    real but not expressible as the quotient of two integers
    But pi is an irrational number, meaning that its decimal form neither ends (like 1/4 = 0.25) nor becomes repetitive (like 1/6 = 0.166666...). (To only 18 decimal places, pi is 3.141592653589793238.)
    - Scientific American
  13. mathematician
    a person skilled in the logic of quantity and arrangement
    The symbol π was devised by British mathematician William Jones in 1706 to represent the ratio and was later popularized by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler.
    - Britannica
  14. pi
    the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle
    Succinctly, pi—which is written as the Greek letter for p, or π—is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle.
    - Scientific American
  15. radius
    a straight line from the center to the perimeter of a circle
    Pi also appears in the calculations to determine the area of an ellipse and in finding the radius, surface area and volume of a sphere.
    - Scientific American
  16. ratio
    the relative magnitudes of two quantities
    Pi (Greek letter π) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point.
    - United Nations
  17. value
    a numerical quantity measured or assigned or computed
    Our world contains many round and near-round objects; finding the exact value of pi helps us build, manufacture and work with them more accurately.
    - Scientific American
  18. transcendental
    existing outside of or not in accordance with nature
    Pi also opens a window into a more uncharted universe, the one consisting of transcendental numbers, which exclude such common irrationals as square and cube roots.
    - The New York Times
  19. random
    lacking any definite plan or order or purpose
    So what use have all those digits been put to? Statistical tests have suggested that not only are they random, but that any string of them occurs just as often as any other of the same length.
    - The New York Times
  20. integer
    any natural number or its negative, or zero
    At some point in your life, you were most likely taught how to round integers and decimal numbers to some specified number of digits or decimal places.
    - Scientific American
    Fractions are parts of numbers, but plenty of numbers are whole and complete, thank you very much. A fancy math term for a whole number is integer. 34 is an integer, but ¾ is not. Whole doesn’t have to mean positive: -34, -9000, and -2 are all integers too.
Created on Fri Mar 09 13:30:28 EST 2018 (updated Tue Dec 12 20:23:51 EST 2023)

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