Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Happy Pi day..

Probably not the most celebrated holiday but I think its cool to be able to celebrate it on march 14 which is 3.14 which is how Pi starts off..  I think this celebration is started by Exploratorium (my most favorite science museum in the world) 24years ago.  And I think it also coincides with Einstein's birthday too!!! who ofcourse is even on our logo:)

Here's a fun experiment I came across last year and an easy way to teach children the relationship between the diameter and circumference and Pi (ofcourse).

Take any circular object and carefully wrap a string around the circumference of the object.  Cut the string to exactly the length around the object. Now the string is exactly equal to the circumference of the object.  Take this string and stretch it across the diameter of the circular object. Cut the string to the length equal to one diameter.  Repeat the procedure again. How many diameters could you cut? 

Now try with another circular object.  What do you observe?
 
No matter what size circle you use, you’ll be able to cut 3 complete diameters and have a small bit of string left over. And the string left over is the length on the other side of the Pi.  (3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288.....).

Have a fun Pi day
Sheela

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