March 14 is Pi Day. The day that we celebrate Pi by eating Pie, or maybe just thinking about math and science.

Long ago I shared pictures of pie in my post Happy Pi Day. Here is one of the pictures I used and it is of my favorite type of pie. You will have to click on the link to find out what type it is 🙂

π = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

5820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117068….

Back in 2015 I wrote about a special Pi Day as we could align more digits than normal.

The moment of Pi: 3.141592653 = 3/14/15 9:26.53

Some people look back to 1592 and claim that it is the ultimate Pi Day. However, there are a few problems with this. The Month/Day/Year format was not used at that time, and quite frankly no one knew Pi as Pi.

The use of the symbol π was not used until the early 1700’s. Before this time the letters c or p were used in equations to denote the value for circumference or periphery. Of course π is the first letter of periphery so most likely this is why it was chosen by William Jones and then used by other mathematicians.

There is another reason why I remember Pi Day, and it also has to do with Science and Mathematics. March 14 is the birthday of the man who lived in this house at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey.

Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He emigrated to the US in 1933 and took a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton.

I took the picture of the Einstein House when I was visiting Princeton years ago. The next picture that I took after the one of Einstein’s house was of the Mercer Oak just down the road in the Princeton Battlefield State Park.

The Mercer Oak was severely damaged in a storm in on March 3, 2000 and had to be completely removed. A sapling grown from an acorn from the Mercer Oak was planted in the same place.

The picture above is one of the last pictures taken of the tree. I just looked at the date stamp on the picture and found that I took it on February 27, 2000.

Of course this tree makes me think of the movie IQ.

This is one of my favorite movies. I may have to watch it tomorrow to celebrate Einstein’s birthday.

One of the scenes in the movie features the Princeton Battlefield Park and the Mercer Oak.

I like IQ for several reasons. One is that it is about Einstein and has a good story line. However, the main reason is that it stars Meg Ryan who is one of my favorite actresses.

Have some pie to celebrate Pi Day and Einstein’s Birthday tomorrow!

Steven