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Today (3/14) is Pi Day.

Why not celebrate with this music video?

If that doesn’t interest you, here’s a wiki on the subject.

An acquaintance of mine, David E. Jones, put this short film (2:38) up on YouTube. His other videos can be found here.

Sir Alexander Fleming is best known for his accidental discovery of penicillin. However, he was an artist as well, admitted to the Chelsea Arts Club on the merits of his “germ paintings.”

More information:
The man who broke the mould: The life and achievements of Nobel Prize winner Alexander Fleming at the Society of Chemical Industry.
Biography at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

At a glance, I didn’t find a photograph of Fleming’s art, but I did find Bioglyphs.

31415926535897932384626433832795028841 is a prime number.

It’s also the first 38 digits of pi.

(via)

. . . audio and video pieces based on five famous mathematical constants. The constants were “sonified” by assigning notes from various musical instruments to the digits 0 through 9.

Fascinating “number play” by Tom Dukich here, including musical representations of pi.

Wilbur Wright (1867-1912)
The Wright Brothers.

In jest, I like to claim da Vinci as a distant cousin, as the Italian side of my family is from Anchiano and Lucca, but I haven’t traced my family back that far. (Although maybe someone knows more than I do—any family members care to comment?)

Anyway, there are many places to learn about this extraordinarily intelligent and talented man, including Wikipedia and the Art Renewal Center.

(For the record, though I like to claim da Vinci, I’d like to take this opportunity to disclaim The Da Vinci Code.)

“Joseph Lister [1827-1912]. . . was an English surgeon who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. He successfully introduced carbolic acid (phenol) to sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds; as a result of his work in sterilisation, Listerine mouthwash was named after him.”

–from Wikipedia.

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998
62803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410
27019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019
09145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920
96282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575
95919530921861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119

I forgot to save the pizza (pizza pie. . . pizza pi. . . ) and ate it last night. Oh, well.

From Metafilter, “We shoulda celebrated on March 14, 1592!” (posted by Lord Kinbote at 7:09 AM PST on March 14).

Hope your Pi Day is happy!

P.S. Extra credit to anyone who gets the “Lord Kinbote” reference!

Pi Day is March 14 (3/14).

“The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable pi can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.”
- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers

a favorite palindrome, “I prefer pi.”

Check out this site for more great quotes, to send an eCard, or do some Pi Day shopping. You might even win a T-shirt! There’s also some good info at Wikipedia; March 14 also happens to be Albert Einstein’s birthday!