Doctor Curmudgeon® My Humblest Apologies!

By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist

I hang my head in shame.

I cannot believe that I forgot.

It was an important day of recognition. And I let it pass me by without a celebratory cake or even an entire chocolate bar.

I even let my circular slide rule lay in a dusty place, forgotten and unused. It is such a beautiful and useful circle.

Where would any circle be without π?
How could we find its area? Its circumference?
Indeed, Pi is integral to mathematics.
And yet, March 14 passed, Pi Day, and I forgot!!

In these tumultuous times, it is important to recognize useful and beautiful entities that remain constant. And Pi, the elegant symbol that represents the mathematical ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is consistent, timeless and infinite.

3.14159 continues beyond its decimal point and has been calculated to more than fifty trillion digits, thanks to computers.

You are often referred to as Archimedes’ Constant. Before Archimedes, you were just a mere infant, an estimation. But he was the first mathematician to actually use a calculation to ascertain your value. He used an application of Euclid’s to calculate polygons circumscribed onto a circle. Around 250 B.C.E., he inscribed a polygon within a circle. Then he drew another one outside of the circle, and he kept on drawing more and more until the sides of the polygons were close to the shape of a circle.

(This is termed, The Method of Exhaustion. It was used by many Greek mathematicians as a proof of their results; likely the earliest use of Integral

Calculus. Although today, we would work this out using limits)
Although infinite and constant, Pi, you remain an enigma. Where did you come from? And if you, my friend, Pi are the number of diameter lengths that run around a circle….how can you be infinite?

I am aware that you are irrational because you are not equal to the ratio of any two whole numbers. There is no simple fraction that is equal to Pi.

Because you are an irrational number, your expression is infinite; after your decimal point, your integers go on endlessly, forever and ever and ever.

From this day forward, I shall remember that March 14, 3/14/XX, was perfectly chosen to celebrate Pi.

Infinite, yet constant. March 14 is now engraved upon my calendars: written onto a roll of papyrus, hammered into one of my stone tablets and typed into my computer.

I shall not forget you again, my elegant friend.