Happy PI day!

[AndrewMeronek]

A child exclaimed to his father: "I learned 'pi r squared' today at school!" To which the father replied, "That's crazy. It's well known that cornbread are square; pie are round!"

[harrisonreed]

https://www.314pibar.com/

[BGuttman]

And we had pie for dessert yesterday; not today.

And nobody here is nerd enough to know what Pi Day is

[AndrewMeronek]

lol - those pies look pretty good!

Around where I live we have this:

https://www.achatzpies.com/

Also, pretty good!

[LeTromboniste]

Only in the US of A!

[harrisonreed]

The place I recommended in Colorado has some of the best Key Lime pie I've ever had.

But I'd go even more for an apple pie from this joint in Karuizawa and Kamakura:

https://no1marco.com/

America has nothing on Japan when it comes to apple pie. Or Italy, apparently.

[BGuttman]

Only in the US of A!

That's true. In Europe 3.14.xx would be the 3rd day of the 14th month. That doesn't work.

[AndrewMeronek]

And of course if you consider pizza to be a type of pie (which it IS!), we have this:

https://louis-pizza.foodjoyy.com/

[sacfxdx]

And nobody here is nerd enough to know what Pi Day is

Speak for yourself. We all play trombone so there's some nerd in all of us.

[harrisonreed]

And of course if you consider pizza to be a type of pie (which it IS!), we have this:

https://louis-pizza.foodjoyy.com/

Sign me up for that

[Posaunus]

Pi Day contribution from our 12-year-old grandson (an accomplished baker!).

[ghmerrill]

And nobody here is nerd enough to know what Pi Day is

C'mon, man! Now tell me you've never heard and chanted ...

E**x dy/dx
E**x dx
Cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159
...

[BGuttman]

And nobody here is nerd enough to know what Pi Day is

Speak for yourself. We all play trombone so there's some nerd in all of us.

I know what Pi Day is. None of the geezer residents and none of the staff seem to know what Pi Day is!

[TomWest]

I’m eating pizza pi tonight.

[officermayo]

Pi Day at Casa de Mayo

[Kbiggs]

Custard tarts tonight. Our freezer door was left open, so our choice was made.

Some of the best pie I’ve ever had came from the Multnomah Pie Shop in Portland OR, and the Snohomish Pie Shop in Snohomish WA. Apple, berry, peach. Mm-mm!

[AndrewMeronek]

But I'd go even more for an apple pie from this joint in Karuizawa and Kamakura:

https://no1marco.com/

America has nothing on Japan when it comes to apple pie. Or Italy, apparently.

I've never been to Japan but I have some friends who have, and yes Japan is kind of known for having some very fun and creative and GREAT takes on food.

[PhilE]

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the US is the only country that writes the dates that way (mm/dd/yy).

[Posaunus]

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the US is the only country that writes the dates that way (mm/dd/yy).

We're forced to do it that way. Otherwise we'd have to create a 14th month to have a Pi Day!

I'm sure there's an equally important reason for us to adhere to the outdated "U.S. Customary Measurement System" (inches, feet, miles, acres, cubits, ounces, pounds, board-feet, drams, tablespoons, pints, quarts, gallons, acre feet, pecks, bushels, ephahs, barrels, degrees Fahrenheit, Btus, ...).

[AndrewMeronek]

Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I know the US is the only country that writes the dates that way (mm/dd/yy).

You're right as far as I know. I'm not a fan, although it's fun to use our format for things like PI day.

I prefer when writing signatures to always use the format ddMMMyyyy where MMM is the alphabetic shorthand for a month. For example, today would be 17MAR2025. I think that is pretty unambiguous no matter where one lives.

[JohnL]

I'm sure there's an equally important reason for us to adhere to the outdated "U.S. Customary Measurement System" (inches, feet, miles, acres, cubits, ounces, pounds, board-feet, drams, tablespoons, pints, quarts, gallons, acre feet, pecks, bushels, ephahs, barrels, degrees Fahrenheit, Btus, ...).

Cultural/institutional inertia, combined with a need for backwards compatibility with a mind-numbingly huge installed base.

[ghmerrill]

There's also a conceptual confusion/conflation buried in the cultural/institutional inertia. To wit: grams and kilograms are not in fact units of weight, as the pound is. So those who favor the metric system favor measurement in terms of mass (kilograms) rather than weight (newtons). If you take a kilogram into a gravity-free field, it's still a kilogram. But if you take a pound into a gravity-free field the pound disappears (so to speak). Since any object being "weighed" will vary depending on where it's weighed (say on the earth vs. the moon), then most people who use the metric system may have things all wrong. They have a good measure of weight (the newton), but they don't seem to like to use it.

Since we all measure weight with scales that actually measure ... er ... weight (and not mass), a scale that measures in grams or kilograms is just wrong most of the time.

Of course, no one seems to care about this ... except ... well, you know ... "nerds". The "U.S." (more historically accurate, the British) system may be "antiquated", but at least it's conceptually consistent and actually assigns a measure of weight (rather than mass) in weighing things.

[AtomicClock]

grams and kilograms are not in fact units of weight, as the pound is.

That's what they teach in physics class, but it's apparently not true. pound-force (weight) and pound-mass are two different units. And when "pound" is used unadorned in legal or economic contexts, my understanding is that pound-mass is what is meant. Even Excel and OpenOffice treat the abbreviations lb as mass and lbf as force.

[ghmerrill]

Even Excel and OpenOffice treat the abbreviations lb as mass and lbf as force.

I'm disinclined to use Excel and OpenOffice as my go-to sources for insight into physics. I hope you understand.

I don't recall ever seeing "pound" employed as mass. NASA, for example (though perhaps not as authoritative on such subjects as Excel and OpenOffice), is usually very careful to distinguish these things in their presentations to the public But, yes, there are colloquial (and so inaccurate and incorrect) uses of a variety of scientific (and other) terms. That's pretty much what "colloquial" means -- as I might convey to you by citing the Merriam-Webster authoritative meaning of "colloquial" as "used in or characteristic of familiar and informal conversation; also: unacceptably informal."

But, of course, who's to say what's unacceptable, eh? And with a nod to Charles Lutwidge Dodgson -- people may use words however they like. There are just consequences for that.

[AndrewMeronek]

That's what they teach in physics class, but it's apparently not true. pound-force (weight) and pound-mass are two different units. And when "pound" is used unadorned in legal or economic contexts, my understanding is that pound-mass is what is meant. Even Excel and OpenOffice treat the abbreviations lb as mass and lbf as force.

Perhaps a fun discussion in of itself. Every profession develops specific standard terminology that is based on colloquial language but different. Think of the following musical terms that can have very different yet related meanings to a layperson:

meter
compression
partial
score
transcribe

[AtomicClock]

Yes, it's important to stay on topic. I'm sorry to say that I had bad pie on Friday. But that's okay, I guess. Pi is a bad constant. I'm on Team Tau all the way. Looking forward to June 28.

[AndrewMeronek]

Yes, it's important to stay on topic. I'm sorry to say that I had bad pie on Friday. But that's okay, I guess. Pi is a bad constant. I'm on Team Tau all the way. Looking forward to June 28.

lol

What do you do for Tau day?

[AtomicClock]

Two pies

[AndrewMeronek]

Two pies

Of course!!!

[elmsandr]

Pi set as an irish jig:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHMlKR7 ... E1aXQxeWUy

Cheers,
Andy

[sacfxdx]

What do you do for Tau day?

Isn't Tau one of Musk's kids?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertai ... 822193007/



Steve

[JTeagarden]

Thanks, I haven't felt this cool by comparison in a long time, keep the contributions coming.

[Posaunus]

... and speaking of the metric system (SI), I just received an article from National Geographic that explains how and why the United States has isolated itself (along with Liberia and Myanmar) as the sole holdouts using "imperial measurements."

Here's part of the article (available to National Geographic subscribers):

What do Liberia, Myanmar, and the United States have in common? Proponents of the metric system claim all three nations have a shameful similarity: They use imperial measurements—feet, pounds, and miles—instead of meters, grams, and kilometers.

The truth, however, is more complicated: Though imperial units are commonly used in the U.S., the metric system is actually the nation’s preferred system of measurement.

So why don’t Americans use it? Here’s how the metric system evolved—and why it’s still struggling to gain a foothold in daily life.

Hiding in plain sight

First, the facts: “It’s been legal to use the metric system in the United States since 1866,” says Elizabeth Benham, program leader of the federal metric program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency in charge of standard weights and measures.

In fact, government policy since the 1970s has designated the metric system—also known as SI, or the International System of Units—the nation’s preferred system of measurement for trade and commerce. But since the U.S. has adopted a voluntary approach, nudging industries and individuals toward using SI instead of making its use a blanket policy, adoption is turning out to be a multi-century endeavor.

[ghmerrill]

I don't really care because it's all a matter of convention. However, a practical consequence is that I have to maintain two distinct sets of tools. And my most recently acquired tool is a digital caliper that will (finally! ) render its measurements either in decimal inches, fractional inches, or millimeters/centimeters. I don't have to do that math in my head any longer.