For the Love of Pi

I love pie. I am a big fan of a warm slice of either pumpkin pie or pecan pie topped with a nice, cold scoop of ice cream. The combination of both piping hot and soothing cold can be a great combination. I guess you can say that I like most any kind of pie. But there is one variety that I have had a mixed relationship with, and that is the mathematical pi. Pi is a concept that has apparently fascinated (and plagued) millions of people since the concept was first discovered. For those people heavily involved in the mathematical world or in the world of theoretical computation and the like, pi is an essential component. For those of us on the periphery of such research it is merely a tool but for others it is apparently a passion.

Every year there is a gathering pi aficionados somewhere in the world. The date is always decided (and that would be March 14 since that can be written as 3.14 or as they would say, the value of pi). People have asked why the fascination with pi and the theory behind it and one of the flippant responses given is "Why climb Mount Everest?" When you have people who start quoting George Mallory's famous Everest quote, you know you're dealing with a very determined person. It is a very interesting concept though the appeal has not quite made sense to me as yet. Computers have calculated out the value of pi out to more than a trillion decimal places. That's one of the novel concepts of numbers in my mind; if you keep digging farther and farther, there's more to it.

For those of us who deal with checkbooks and the like on a daily basis, our common background is to go two decimal places, but if we too, like those pi fans out there, begin going farther and father down the decimal chain, we are likely to take some comfort in the fact that perhaps we are richer when we realize see that we are that much closer to having 9 trillionth of a cent. That's not to say that those who love the concept of pi are dealing with an alternate reality or anything. But there are some who are looking into the possibility that perhaps the answer to the questions of life and this existence lies within the trillions of numbers of pi.

Marc Umile (pictured herein) is not a theorist, or a mathematician or even a certified genius; but twelve years ago as he worked as an usher at an opera house he picked up a book on mathematical oddities and since then he has been fascinated with the concept. During his free time he began looking into the concept which is known for a seemingly infinite string as well as having no discernable pattern. It apparently inspired him and now, Umile is hoping to discover the truth behind life using pi as his guide.

That's one statement that I never thought I would hear. "Pi holds the key to the secret of life." As strange as it seems, it is possible; then again it could be just a random occurence that is nature's way of manipulating the numbers and keeping a fair number of us occupied. For school kids, it is a concept that they have to memorize in order to compute circumferences and areas of circles, and the like and for the rest of us, it is a concept that belongs in our past school days and such. But for others, a small group to be sure, it will always mean that much more. We all have hobbies; yours may be racing, Star Wars or skydiving; their's just happens to be numbers.