What is Pi Day and why do we celebrate it?

Today is Pi Day – and we're not talking about delicious pastries, unfortunately.

On 14 March, the maths formula is celebrated across the US and was officially made a national holiday in 2009 when the House of Representatives passed legislation.

The first celebration took place in 1988 at physicist Larry Shaw's Exploratorium, a San Francisco-based interactive science museum, which featured a circular parade and the eating of fruit pies

Paying homage to high school math, the symbol Pi was said to be first introduced by William Jones, a Welsh mathematician in 1706.

Pi (often represented by the lower-case Greek letter π), is one of the most well-known maths formulas. It is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter and is actually an irrational number (a decimal with no end and no repeating pattern) that is most often approximated with the decimal 3.14 or the fraction 227, explains Pi Day.

People band together in hopes the day will create interest in math and science across the world, through exhibitions, wearing dedicated awareness merch and pie-eating (or sometimes throwing) contests.

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Pi Day is celebrated on 14 March due to its month/day format (03/14), which correlates to the numerical value of Pi. It also so happens to be the birthday of the science great, Albert Einstein.

One memorable celebration saw Rajveer Meena at VIT University memorise 70,000 places of Pi.

Others across the world celebrate the day by creating Pi art and hosting pizza parties.

The website, creating awareness for the unique day, also encourages people to eat Pi foods, go on a Pi-inspired scavenger hunt, create Pi Day paper chains amongst many more fun activities.

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