Pi imagined by my daughter, Ellie
At the time of writing this, it is 3/14/15 – Pi day of the century.
My kids and I had a lovely time spending Pi Day at Grand Traverse Pie Company. My 14-year old son recited pi here and there for strangers. There was even a contest for how many digits you could say in 15 seconds where the video had to be uploaded to @GTPie on twitter. AJ recorded a video, but in order to say as many digits as he knows, he had to go impossibly fast and still couldn’t say all he knows. (Recently, someone had counted about 135, so I knew it was quite a lot.) Still, it was fun. And yummy!
At home, I went out to twitter to see other entries but found very few. We did stumble across one that @GTPie had retweeted by “pi genius” Aaron Craft at Ohio State. Always excited to hear other people say pi, AJ listened to it with me. Aaron ended at 63 digits (and that is amazing, so Aaron deserves huge kudos.) I looked at AJ and he was nodding and smiling. “He should be really proud of himself! He did really well.”
I got all proud mama and said, “Let’s record it, too! You know more than that guy!”
He surprised me with a shrug and a “No thanks.”
Whoa. Wait. What?
I stepped back and wondered about his own nearly-double-the-number ability. He’s 14! Don’t kids this age live for the moments that they do something like this — something that can give a college man a run for his money? He was reciting it left and right at the Grand Traverse Pie Company. Stage fright? No. Not AJ. His speech teacher can verify that.
I asked him why he didn’t want to put up a video. He looked right at me and giving me a wise head tilt said, “That other guy did a great job and I don’t want to make him feel bad.”
Excuse me while I choke on the humble pie my son just force-fed me. Wow. My 14-year old son didn’t want to make a college man feel bad. (And, as it turns out, now a professional basketball player.)
I checked myself and realized he was right: I wanted him to do it for the wrong reasons. AJ’s saying 120+ digits doesn’t come from a place of showing off. It comes from a love of the number pi and all things math. He tells people pi because he wants other people to love it and feel the way he feels when he says it. We have discussions about pi and the ramifications of random and infinite things in the universe and that often leads us to the infinite nature of God.
I changed my heart, though. I ate the humble pi(e) and learned from it. I told him I wanted others to share in the joy of pi. And I do. In the end, he agreed to record himself saying 127 digits because as much as he loves pi, he also loves his mama.
Now, I share this with you, not just because he’s awesome, but because I want you to see the grin on his face while he’s doing this. I want other pi people to watch it and say, “Yes! There are more of us! Pi lovers: UNITE!”
This is the impossibly fast version. It has not been sped up.
Maybe you know someone else who loves pi. Let us know!
(side note #1: AJ actually prefers tau because Vi Sweet’s “Pi Is (still) Wrong” video was quite convincing.
side note #2: When I looked up Aaron Craft, I found out he’s a Christian. TheLantern.com has an article where Aaron is quoted, “That’s [Romans 5:8] the biggest thing that keeps me humble and keeps things in perspective for me.” Romans 5:8 reads, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this; while we are still sinners, Christ died for us.” These two pi guys (AJ and Aaron) are like peas in a pod.)
Lexical Jen 