Pi Baby?

[Andy the Actuary]

Just noticed that American playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote Jr was born on 3/14/16.

[Tom Poje]

I'd be more impressed if he was born on 3/14/15 at 9:26

[Andy the Actuary]

I'd be more impressed if he was born on 3/14/15 at 9:26

Understand your comment but he was obviously a well-rounded baby.

[Tom Poje]

to hear the first verse, click here

http://www.vvc.edu/ph/TonerS/mathpi.html

A long, long time ago

Long before the Super Bowl and things like lemonade

The Hellenic Republic was full of smarts

And a question resting on the Grecian hearts

Was "What is the circumference of a circle?"

But they were set on rational numbers

And it ranks among their biggest blunders

They worked on it for years

And confirmed one of their biggest fears

I can't be certain if they cried when irrationality was realized

But something deep within them died

the day they discovered pi.

They were thinking

CHORUS:

Pi, pi, mathematical pi

3 point 14 15 92

65 35 89 7

932384 62

6433832 7 (not rounded)

VERSE:

Well this kind of pie is different than most

It hasn't got berries, ain't spread on toast

And that's how it's always been

We keep extending its decimal places

Pushing our computers through their paces

But we'll never reach the end

So why the fascination with

A number whose end is just a myth

Whence the adulation

For mental consternation

It might have something to do with the stars

To calculate distances from afar

But that's just a guess 'bout the way things are

Regarding the precision of pi

I am pondering

CHORUS:

VERSE:

Now I feel that I should mention

Pi is applicable in any dimension

At least as far as I know

If there were no Pi we'd be missing things

Like marbles and mugs and balls of string

And sports such as soccer and curling

The orbs in their celestial paths

Navigate along elliptical graphs

Ellipses have pi in them too

Just one side of them has grew

You can see pi in most everything

It's in Cornell's Electron Storage Ring

And also in slinkies and other springs

And that's why it's important to know pi

You should memorize

CHORUS:

Once one night I had a dream

That pi was gone and I had to scream

Cause all pi things had disappeared (pause)

Can you imagine a world like that

Circles aren't round and spheres are flat

It's the culmination of everything we've feared

'Twas a nightmare of epic proportions

One that gave me brain contortions

Oh wait! I mean contusions

They put me in some institutions

But then I escaped and now I'm free

To sing of the virtue of pi