Haven't signed into your Scholastic account before?
Teachers, not yet a subscriber?
Subscribers receive access to the website and print magazine.
You are being redirecting to Scholastic's authentication page...
Announcements & Tutorials
Renew Now, Pay Later
Sharing Google Activities
2 min.
Setting Up Student View
Exploring Your Issue
Using Text to Speech
Join Our Facebook Group!
1 min.
Subscriber Only Resources
Access this article and hundreds more like it with a subscription to Scholastic Math magazine.
STANDARDS
CCSS: 6.EE.A.2.C, 7.EE.B.3, MP1, MP6
TEKS: 6.3D, 6.7D, 7.3A, 7.3B
Article Options
Presentation View
By the Numbers: All About Pi
Dividing a circle’s circumference by its diameter always yields the same number: pi. This constant equals about 22/7, or 3.14. Pi is an infinite decimal—its digits go on forever. People have calculated its never-ending numbers since antiquity. Pi even has its own holiday! Every year on March 14 (3/14), math lovers celebrate the irrational number by holding competitions to recite its digits; writing “pi-kus” (haikus about pi); and eating delicious pies.
Read on to learn more out about this irrational number. Then plug in the numbers into the equation below to reveal a final fact.
96
Adoc-Photos/Corbis via Getty Images
Number of sides of the polygon that Greek mathematician Archimedes used to estimate pi’s value 2,000 years ago— before decimals existed!
16
NASA
Minimum number of digits of pi needed in the calculations that keep the International Space Station in orbit
1879
Bettmann/Getty Images
Year Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day!
13,300,000,000,000
Ten
Guinness World Records
Hours spent reciting pi—to 70,000 decimal places—by 25-year-old student Rajveer Meena from Vellore, India. It earned him a world record shortly after Pi Day in 2015.
31
Shutterstock.com
Number of digits in pi before the appearance of a zero
NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech