World Maths Day

Today, we will be talking about World Maths Day, although it is about 2 months ago.

First, world maths day is held on the 1st Wednesday in March, with that of 2009 being the 4th of March. It is one of the world's largest global educational events, aimed at lifting numeracy standards in a fun and meaningful way. Although it seems to be a day where math is celebrated, it is actually an event regarding the solution of mathematical problems, held over a period of 48 hours.

In the event, the question set come under four categories: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. In each game, the student has 1 minute to answer as many of these questions of a random category as they can. The level of difficulty varies according to the age of the participant. Students are allowed to attempt the questions as many times over during the specified period.

During the game, the website would attempt to find others of the same standard to match the player against, however should there be no suitable pair, the player is challenged by a computer(programmed to answer questions at a pace based on the history of the student). After each game, both competitors' results would then be reflected. Should there be a moment where the student has 3 incorrect answers, he automatically loses.

Some facts about World Maths Day 2009:

- 1.9 million students from over 225 countries combine to correctly answer a grand total of 452,682,682 mathematics questions, breaking the previous record of 182,455,169 in 2008

- There were over 10,000,000 sign ins during the 48 hour period.

- Age Categories of Elementary, Middle and High were introduced so as to find 3 World Champions, which are as follows:
Elementary: K H, Malaysia with 90,448 correct
Middle: Kaya G, Australia with 129,106 correct
High: David A, Australia with 115,571 correct

More information can be found @ http://www.worldmathsday.com

That's all for today.
Kah Keong

Starting off..

I shall start off with the blog, although it is a bit behind schedule.

Today, I will be talking about the Pi day and the things related to Pi.

First, what is pi?
Pi is a mathematical constant with the value of 22/7, and is written as π.

There are a few days that are used to celebrate this mathematical constant we see ever so frequently.

The first three digit of Pi is 3.14. Therefore, Pi Day is observed on March 14, which happens to be the birthdays of Albert Einstein and Waclaw Sierpinski. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution, recognizing the 14th March this year as National Pi Day.

There is also the Pi minute, which is celebrated on 1:59 pm of March 14. Pi Second would be March 14, 1:59:26 pm, which all the numbers chained together would make the first 7 digits of Pi.

Interestingly, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology often mails its acceptance letters to be delivered to prospective students on Pi Day.

Also, Pi day is celebrated widely across the whole world, for example in India, it is celebrated every year at Tezpur University.

Another interesting fact about the Pi Day is that on this day in 2004,a guy called Daniel Tammet calculated and recited a whooping 22,514 decimal digits of pi from memory, a very incredible feat, making him the European record holder.

However, Pi is not only celebrated on the 14 of March. There are other days in which Pi are celebrated too. These days are know as Pi Approximation Day. This day is observed on 22 July, which can be written as 22/7, the fractional expression for Pi.

There are also other days that are known as the Pi Approximation Day too. One would be the 10th of November, which is the 314th day of the year (November 9 on leap years). December 21, 1:13 pm is also another day in this category, as December 21 is the 355 day of the year, in accordance to the chinese approximation of 355/113.

That shall be all for today,
Kah Keong