Super Pi day… or is it?

There is much fanfare about today being Pi day, and not just any pi day but an extra special, once-in-a-century one- “Today is a rare and thrilling ‪#‎PiDay‬: Once in a century (well okay, twice today, given AM & PM) the month/day/year/hour/minute/second reads 3.141592653—the first 10 digits of pi”. But that’s not strictly true is it?

Not even getting into the whole how-you-write-the-date thing (in the UK today is 14-3-15), if you want to say the whole date is Pi, then that would be next year as to round Pi to 4 decimal places would be 3.1416.

And unfortunately if you say you’re including the time (ie. 3-14-15 at 9:26 and 54 seconds- not 53 as the person I’ve quoted above, the 3 gets rounded to a 4), that doesn’t really work either as to write the time scientifically it would be 09:26 (and pm would be 21:26) so you’d have to say 3-14-15 09:26 54′ which doesn’t work at all.

I’m not trying to spoil anybody’s fun (I’m really just being pedantic for the fun of it) and I hope today has sold a lot of T-shirts, but I’m predicting now that next year there will be a whole new slew of posts and ads proclaiming that 3-14-16 is a “once in a century Pi day” to sell a whole lot more T-shirts- and I might actually buy one of those.

In the mean time- I whole-heartedly support March 14 every year being celebrated as Pi day… mine’s a slice of apple please, and hold the cinnamon 😉