A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.

Nerd alert … or perhaps it’s a food alert.

Today is March 14, you know 3.14, otherwise known as Pi Day. In a month-day format, (3-14) represents the three digits of the value of π.

Pi is the mathematical constant of the ratio of any circle’s circumference divided by its diameter. (Note: Some of us had to look it up.)

According to news reports, the idea of “Pi Day” originated with physicist Larry Shaw, who organized the first Pi Day celebration at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988. Almost exactly 21 years later, on March 11, 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution proclaiming March 14 to be National Pi Day. The resolution encourages schools to teach their students about pi and to “engage them about mathematics.”

Whatever. It’s possible most Americans are most interested in the food deals you can get on Pi Day.

Like pizza pie.

Or cherry pie.

The fun facts around Pi Day

• It’s possible, but perhaps not likely, that they have been honoring Pi Day since 1592. According to math folks, the “Ultimate Pi day” fell on March 14, 1592, at 6:53 a.m., which was the largest correspondence between calendar dates and significant digits of pi since the introduction of the Julian calendar (3.14159265358).

Utah Connections Academy’s Megan Tahbun looks over at fellow student Aspen Romrell as teachers and students battled it out in a pie-eating contest in celebration of Pi Day on Monday, March 14, 2016. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

• In 2019, Google announced that its employee Emma Haruka Iwao had broken the world record for calculating pi, to 31.4 trillion digits. She reportedly did it on Pi Day using Google Cloud.
• And finally, Albert Einstein, who would revolutionize physics and the human understanding of the universe — and would have savored Pi Day — was born on this day in 1879 in Ulm, Germany.

In Utah, schoolchildren have enjoyed Pi Day in a variety of ways, memorizing the number and its relation to other concepts, pie-eating contests and efforting a pi paper chain world record. And who can forget pi-dyed shirts?

In recent years, the food industry has taken over, offering delightful deals on pies of all kinds.

Here are stories from Deseret News archives about Pi Day in all its glory:

“1,200-mile calculation give pi a billion digits”

“Japanese researchers set record on value of pi”

“Students get their fill on Pi Day”

“Gallery: Students, teachers dive into Pi Day celebration””

“Students attempt to break pi paper chain world record, run out of time”

“Math students to raise cash with ‘pi-dye’ shirts”

“`Pi’ shows exciting side of math, numbers”

“University of Utah math professor starts international math movement”

“Math + music = a CD for Salt Lake man”

Annie Murdock helps attempt to break the pi paper chain world record, with more than 80,000 paper links numbered in the order of pi, the day before Pi Day, at Hillside Middle School in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 13, 2015. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News