Pi in the Sky
A few thoughts about math and meaning
Today is Pi Day, the date that the Gregorian calendar approximates the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It is a glorious nerd holiday.
Nerdy science culture is a fantastic thing to celebrate because nerdy science culture is about finding human joy in the complex reality we inhabit — a reality that is often a giant bummer where human interests are concerned.
What the celebration of Pi day tells us is that even the most supposedly rational reality lovers among us (mathematicians!) harbor an irrepressible love of myth and coincidence (and delicious pastries). π is a constant in an uncertain world.
It’s easy to forget that the matching numbers, the date and the ratio, are actually far from equal. One is an observable mathematical fact. The other is an arbitrary designation we owe to this one Pope. (And since π is also approximately mentioned in the bible maybe we can also celebrate a day of reconciliation between science and religion.) This coincidence feels significant, but is actually meaningless.
Celebrating Einstein’s birthday in his home country? Pi-fail!
Humans are zealous pattern seekers. This quality both saved and brought home our bacon when our ancestors were out there getting their brains evolved on the veldt. A little extra enthusiasm about finding patterns yielded big benefits. Fleeing a shadow in the trees as though it’s a lion preserves way more genes than dismissing Simba as some oddly fuzzy grass.
In our current human environment, where installed instances of an obsolete operating system far outnumber the eponymous apex predators*, pattern matching has a much bigger downside. We are each processing so much data on a daily basis we are desperate for satisfying shortcuts. A brain designed for dinner? yes/no now faces somewhere upwards of 1 million options on Seamless alone — and that brain is exhausted.
Apparent patterns appear as friendly little islands to people drowning in data. But imputing meaning to coincidence makes us a danger to ourselves. Snap assessments have far-reaching effects, but it is so darn hard not to grasp them.
This is a situation that should cause us to pause, constantly.
3/14/15 9:26.5 is a celebration of the paradox of our humanity. Our big dumb brains can track the motions of the stars, but can’t quench the pull of the horoscope. We want the math to be the meaning. Only by consciously embracing this nature and being the best social creatures we are, can we put our heads together to tell fact from fabrication. And find that bigger pie.
*I don’t know this for a fact, but I sure bet more than 30,000 Macs in the world are running OSX Lion.
