What many don\u2019t know is that Pi Day itself can be traced back to Reed as well, through Larry Shaw \u201961. Larry was a physics major at Reed, before going on to be the technical curator for the Exploratorium, a science museum in San Francisco. In 1988, he came up with the idea of honoring the influential constant with an annual party. The Exploratorium celebrated its first Pi Day on March 14 at 1:59 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com\/docsz\/AD_4nXfkMNxomMQw2VcIh_OdnS2yvYgHs9phalL7CSFsDl2m8rHFxYlXruKm6f4fTKAp0E_axvMhoh9mrqVDI70pgZ1UgJvTUw9wSUPq2cURXo4Ay6dYaX3L6vTYeznCkBym7XlqF5iYlw?key=QwYdJBHv-YkL9K0xkUpqQw_x\")
Larry believed the best part of Pi Day was its ability to make math seem accessible and fun to folks who may have suffered through it during their school days. He was honored that it became such a national holiday. \u03c0 may be an irrational number, but Larry\u2019s celebration of it was rational, civil, and orderly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For 38 years, he donned his red cap emblazoned with the magic digits and led a parade of museumgoers, each of them holding a sign bearing one of the digits of \u03c0. They would march in strict order, with 3 in front, the decimal point next, and then 141592653489 . . . Of course the number of sign carriers was exhausted long before the infinite digits of pi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Larry passed away in 2017, but his memory lives on as we celebrate the holiday. Rest assured, Larry condoned all varieties of pie; per his wife, \u201cHe didn\u2019t have a favorite, he ate everything.\u201d Grab a slice of your favorite and join us today in toasting Larry and \u03c0. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The symbol \u03c0, as every Reedie knows, represents a fundamental geometrical constant\u2014the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter\u2014whose precise value is elusive, but which famously begins 3.14159. \u03c0 has become a delightful excuse to celebrate in the spring with pizza, pie, and Euclidean tomfoolery\u2013on March 14th, Pi Day. Of course a … Continue reading Pi Day Comes Full Circle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2891,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[209,195,207,197,114],"class_list":["post-3826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-famous-alumni","tag-holidays","tag-pi-day","tag-reed-traditions","tag-tradition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2891"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3826"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3832,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3826\/revisions\/3832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.reed.edu\/riffin_griffin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com\/docsz\/AD_4nXeMIqsQ9VGe6rmJhV0PjNi4SRLWWCXH0bDjTXgyyj3Jo5tk2YfVZmgOVDUYQyz1NbogEwJ_BUgL1kx7OUWJMvtzvl9BozODR3MUSHBBvv73b65_xo2o6pUdYIae0XDC70Ni_-xo4w?key=QwYdJBHv-YkL9K0xkUpqQw_x\")