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Celebrate the Pi Day of the Century @ Rensselaer Library

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Apple pie with a pi shape cut in the crust

Join us at the Rensselaer Library on Saturday, March 14 at 9:26 a.m. as we celebrate one of the most interesting numbers with mini pies, a brief pi demonstration and pi crafts for all ages.

This will be a perfect way for families to spend time before the program at 10 am featuring Iditarod musher Karen Land.

Pi Day is an annual celebration commemorating the mathematical constant π (pi) -- the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Since 1988, Pi Day is observed each year on March 14 (3/14), since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of π in decimal form.

In the year 2015, Pi Day will have special significance on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. and p.m., with the date and time representing the first 10 digits of π (3.141592653).

Join us at the Rensselaer Library on Saturday, March 14 at 9:26 a.m. as we celebrate one of the most interesting numbers with mini pies, a brief pi demonstration and pi crafts for all ages.

This will be a perfect way for families to spend time before the program at 10 am featuring Iditarod musher Karen Land.

Pi as a concept has been regarded as a mathematical curiosity by cultures across the globe since the earliest days of mathematics.

It is both a number that is irrational – it cannot be expressed as a common fraction and it repeats without end – and transcendental – it cannot be expressed algebraically.

Although a concept in every mathematical system, it became known by the Greek letter π since the mid-18th century. It is used in practical mathematical and scientific fields including trigonometry, geometry, cosmology, number theory, statistics, fractals, thermodynamics, mechanics and electromagnetism.

In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day.

In 1897, the Indiana General Assembly entertained a petition that would have legislated the value of Pi as 3.2, apparently so the state could skip out on the royalties the author planned to charge the rest of the world. The bill, which has been ridiculed ever since, never became law due to the intervention of Professor C. A. Waldo of Purdue University, who happened to be present in the legislature on the day it went up for a vote.

Pies will be available until 9:55 am or until supplies run out. For more information, visit or call the Rensselaer Library at 866-5881.