“The mathematical constant Pi is found everywhere”

Mexico City. The mathematical constant Pi is found everywhere, not just in geometry. It is in the surveys to know the preferences of citizens in the next elections for the Presidency of the Republic, the development of a clock, the airwaves of a radio station and in the advance of artificial intelligence.

Interviewed by The Conference On the occasion of International Mathematics Day, also called International Pi Day, which is celebrated on March 14, Fernando Ignacio Becerra López, mathematician and doctor in physical-mathematical sciences from the University of Guadalajara, clarified that it is a mathematical constant discovered for humanity, it was not invented.

Pi emerged in the area of ​​geometry, and as mathematics advanced, it began to be found in other areas, such as probability and calculus. Since it is a number that cannot be calculated, since it has an infinite number of decimals, without a specific pattern, discoveries continue to be made around it.. For example, in 2019, Emma Haruka, a Vietnamese theoretical computer scientist and cloud programming developer for Google, estimated the largest number of decimal values ​​of Pi, at 31 trillion digits.

Movies have been made around this mathematical constant, such as Pi: the order of chaos, by the American Darren Aronofsky, which addresses the story of a mathematician who is about to decode the stock market number system.

Poems have also been written such as Cadaeib Cadenza, composed in 1996 by the American mathematician Mike Keith. In this work the figures of Pi are found by replacing the number of letters in each word with its respective number in the alphabet.

Pi, in addition to being a mathematical constant, became a symbol of cultural identity for specialists in this science. And it has to do with this idea that it contains a lot of informationsaid Becerra López.

He added that Another curiosity is that by containing an infinite number of decimals, without a pattern, it is believed that any information can be found in them.

In 2009, the United States House of Representatives approved the creation of Pi Number Day, and the date for its commemoration was the most representative of this 3.14. In 2019, UNESCO declared March 14 International Mathematics Day. Since then, different activities have been organized around the world to mark this date.

There are places where contests are held to see who can recite the most decimal digits of this constant from memory. Akira Haraguchi, a Japanese engineer and mental therapist, broke the world record in 2006, by saying 100,000 digits in 16 hours.

Becerra López regretted that despite how relevant Pi is, the first contact with this information is at basic school levels where context is not provided, and students do not find the motivation to be interested in mathematics.

He stated that in surveys carried out on adolescents, already in the midst of the rise of artificial intelligence, young people recognize a usefulness in mathematics, but do not show interest in studying it.

Mathematics is applied science; we’re trying to figure things out, and they can seem very abstract. But if children were shown fewer procedures and more context, they might be more interested.

The mathematician added that studying Pi and generating computer programs to know which decimal number is next in the series, helps solve complex problems in computing and algorithms.

The Institute of Mathematics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico organized activities in its Juriquilla unit, on March 15 and 16; in Ciudad Universitaria, on the Prometeo esplanade, of the Faculty of Sciences, on the 14th, with the participation of the Matequio group, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In coordination with the Mexican Mathematical Society, the Pi-énsalo Fair will be held, complementary to the race on April 7, at the Practice Stadium.