Since Y2K happened, Pi Day 2015 is no longer special

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post.

The whole Y2K brouhaha that took place fifteen years ago has taken all the fun out of Pi Day for me.

I’ll tell you why.

Nobody -- at least, no computer -- uses two digits to indicate the year any more.

Without going through all the gory details, computer programmers in the 20th century could get away with using a two-digit year in a date field (such as 3/14/15) , but as the 21st century loomed on the horizon computer programmers already had long-range plans and made adequate preparation suddenly panicked at the thought that extensive changes to many, many programs had to be made to be able henceforth to determine whether a date -- a date of birth or marriage or death, for example, or the difference between two dates -- involved a 20th-century date or a 21st-century date.

In the early days of computer programming (mid- to late-20th century) , computer programs routinely subtracted one year from another to determine which date was earlier and which was more recent. But crossing the millenium boundary* made it necessary to solve in another way the problem of, say, June 3, 2004, being a later date than November 9, 1997. Subtraction simply wasn’t going to work any more using a two-digit year. I mean, 04 is less than 97, but humans know that 2004 is not earlier than 1997. Computers do not. In this respect, human beings are very smart and computers are very stupid.

Where previously month, day, and year could be expressed in mmddyy format, beginning on January 1, 2000, the format had to be changed to mmddyyyy (alternately known as mmddccyy where cc meant century) . This caused no end of consternation among the computer programming portion of the populace for months on end.

But, as we all know, the conversion eventually took place and the world did not end at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1999. However, one result of all the hand-wringing and head-scratching fifteen years ago is that the most recent Pi Day was not 3/14/15, it was 3/14/2015, and 9:26.53 a.m. on Pi Day could not possibly be expressed as 3.141592653 since, using the new yyyy format, it must be expressed as 3.14201592653. That is not what Pi meant at all. That is not it, at all.

The following passage of poetry suddenly leaps to mind:

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.


Can you tell why?


*The millenium boundary was actually 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2001, not 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2000. But that is probably a topic for another post.

Yesterday was Pi Day, but there is still time to celebrate Approximate Pi Day™

I neglected to say one word about Pi Day yesterday, although I did write a post about it last year.

Pi Day. Get it? March 14 (3.14) .

It only works in countries in which most of the people write the month before the day. Countries in which most of the people write the day before the month (14 March, 14.3) find the whole idea rather curious.

But this year’s Pi Day was a more interesting one than usual. In fact, the sort of Pi Day this year’s Pi Day was happens only once every century.

It didn’t happen on 3/14/12 or 3/14/13 or 3/14/14 and it won’t happen on 3/14/16 or 3/14/17 or 3/14/18. Only on 3/14/15 do the month, day and year match the first six digits of pi (because pi is not 3.1416, it’s 3.14159, don’t you know.

Furthermore, at a certain moment Saturday morning it was 3/14/15 at 9:26 a.m. (first eight digits of pi) and not only that, at a certain second in that minute yesterday morning it was 3/14/15 9:26.53 (first 10 digits of pi). This phenomenon, pi expressed as a month, day, year, hour, minute, and second happens only once every hundred years. The last time it happened was in the year 1915, and the next time it will happen will be in the year 2115.

And I missed it.

I suppose you could say it happened twice (9:26.53 a.m. and 9:26.53 p.m.) , but let’s just go with the 24-hour clock, in which 9:26.53 p.m. is expressed as 21:26.53 and say it happened once, and be done with it.

I’m posting today because some people say better late than never.

Some people also say a stitch in time saves nine.

Some people say faint heart ne’er won fair maid.

Some people say pride goeth before a fall.

Some people say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I fear I am drifting off topic.

Where was I? Oh yes, Pi Day.

If you live in a country where most of the people write the day before the month and are content with approximations rather than insisting on multiple decimal places of accuracy, you can still celebrate Approximate Pi Day™, which I think I just invented.

You can celebrate on July 22nd instead of March 14th because 3.14 is approximately 22/7. Moreover, it doesn’t happen just once every hundred years. You can celebrate Approximate Pi Day™ on July 22nd every single year if you like.

So the moral of the story is that while one man’s meat may be another man’s poison, one man’s Pi Day is March 14th and another man’s Pi Day is July 22nd.

The balance of the cosmos is now restored.

Now if only the water in toilets would swirl in the same direction in both the northern and southern hemispheres, humankind might achieve a true and lasting peace in the world.

This post will be continued tomorrow.