A pi day record!

Congratulations to all the students involved!

Hi there,

My name is Veronica Han-G Benes and I am a MS Math teacher at Westlake Christian School, in Palm Harbor, Florida. I am sending you this email as I have emailed Gene Potter. He gave me your email address and suggested that I email you in regards to what our MS math class has done for National Pi Day, last Tuesday.

My students participated in several various events, which I received various ideas from mathwithmrherte.com. Some of them included citing as many circular objects in the world, circular songs, memorizing digits of Pi, measuring various objects for circumference and area as well as, making a Pi chain.

I understand that North Clayton High, (in an article written by Jeffrey Whitfield) stated they made a 5,000 link Pi chain.

Well, after some research I had seen on Mr. Herte's website that a school in Ohio had made a chain back in 2002 of 5201 links! I am so happy to say that my math students made a Pi chain of 7,095 digits!! It was so impressive that I had our local paper, St. Petersburg Times have a photographer sent over so they could take a pictuer. I am happy to say that we were photographed on Wednesday, March 15th in our Pinellas Times Section of the paper.

I was hoping you could help me so that I could have my students listed somehow, on a record list. In addition, I have a 7th grade student who has memorized 254 digits of Pi!!

I am so happy my students were able to participate in this experience and have a great time...

Please advise me how I can get my students noticed...

Thank you so much!

Veronica Han-G BenesMS Math Teacher
Westlake Christian School
1551 Belcher Road
Palm Harbor, FL 34683

Pi Day is here!

TUESDAY MARCH 14 (03.14) IS PI DAY -- When Math Geeks, Students & Quants Can Have Their Pi and Eat It Too
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 13, 2006--It's Pi Day because the date is 3/14 -- the first three digits of Pi.
It's celebrated across the United States by Math nerds, students, teachers and professors, from elementary school to university, and even die-hard Quants.
Contrary to the pundits, there is a groundswell of enthusiasm and interest in Math and Sciences across the spectrum. Pi Day is the most visible demonstration.
The annual ritual Drop of The Giant Pi, viewed live across the United States, takes place in cyberspace at Pi Day Ground Zero -- the Pi Department at MathematiciansPictures.com -- on March 14 at precisely 1:59 pm (3.14.1:59 -- the first six digits of Pi). The Countdown is already running live.
PI DAY COUNTDOWN, & GIANT PI DROP at:
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI_DAY_CENTRAL_Giant_Pi_Drop_MARCH_14.htm
Pi lovers don Pi Day shirts, display Pi Day posters and Pi scrolls, drink from Pi Day mugs, and serve pie in Pi Day aprons, as the Giant Pi descends majestically for its annual 'touch down.'
MEDIA "INTERVIEW WITH THE PI" (Visual & Voice):
Media interviews with the Pi (visual and voice) are available Monday March 13th and Tuesday March 14th as the Pi prepares for its Pi Day drop from the Giant Crane.
PI DAY GEAR: http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI-DAY.htm
EVERYDAY PI: (American Pi, Strawberry Pi, Pi-in-the-Sky, Apple Pi, Pizza Pi, etc)
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/sp_Pi_Variations.htm#PI_SHIRTS_POSTERS_MUGS
WORLD'S LARGEST PI POSTER (4 feet x 8 feet: One Million Digits):
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/Pi_One_Million_Decimal_Places_Pi_1_Million_Decimal_Places_poster.htm#PI_ONE_MILLION_DIGITS
Pi Scrolls:
http://MathematiciansPictures.com/PI/PI-PANEL_scroll.htm#PI_SCROLLS
Please let us know if you are interested in order that minor technical details for Drop of the Giant Pi coverage, and the Interview with the Pi can be coordinated in advance.

I used to live near these cities.....never thought about the names

Well, at least we don't live in Il-in-WAH
JAY RATH For the State Journal
The Bible tells us that God looked at the Tower of Babel, scattered its builders and confounded their tongues. This must be the earliest known literary reference to Wisconsin.
How else to explain our welter of impossible city and town pronunciations?
"I think my first week, it was Wau-POON. That was a lot of fun," says Christine Bellport, WMTV (Ch. 15) morning anchor. The California native arrived in Madison in August 2004, only to be ambushed by, of course, Waupun. There's an Associated Press guide to place name pronunciation, "Except - I'm not kidding you - a third of the time they're incorrect," says Bellport.
At northern Wisconsin's Chequamegon-Nicolet U.S. National Forest, public affairs specialist Cathy Fox has heard it all. Just looking at the name terrifies. "I had some poor guy call from California once," Fox recalls, laughing. "He said, 'I need to update some information on Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch' - I said, 'Go ahead. Try it!'• "
Only Wisconsinese features a silent "Q." The correct pronunciation is SHAW-em-gun. The strangest she's heard was check-wa-ME-gun. "That was the phonetically correct person," Fox says, coining a new meaning for P.C.
Our maps seem designed to embarrass. Take Rio and Theresa, two Wisconsin villages. You would think that no names could be easier to pronounce. You would be wrong.
Rio rhymes with EYE-Oh, and it's tuh-RESS-uh. Following this logic, the capital should be MADE-ice-own.
Similarly, there is the Strange Case of Muscoda, which you might expect to be mus-KOE- duh. There is hope that the emerging science of quantum mechanics and string theory may yet account for pronouncing it, instead, as MUSS-kuh- day.
We're not as dumb as we think when we bump into unfamiliar place names. We take for granted how much we do know. For example, which "ough" sound should one mimic when pronouncing the city 20 miles southwest of Madison? Looking to "rough," "through" and "thought," it could be called Stuffton, Stewton or Stawton. But somewhere long ago we learned that Stoughton is "STOW-tun."
Then there's the siren's song of familiar, look-alike words that lure us toward the shores of mispronunciation and public embarrassment. Oregon the state is ends with an "un" sound, but in Wisconsin the town is definitely "on." On the back of most nickels you see that Jefferson lived at mont-uh- CHELL-oh, but our Monitcello is mont-uh-SELL-oh. The city of Tomahawk presents no problem, but the city of Tomah does. It's TOE-muh. And you're welcome to take your bow and play the viola in Viola, so long as you pronounce the community's first syllable with an "eye" sound, and not the musical instrument's "vee."
Speaking of music, different meters playing at the same time is called a hemiola; think of a polka played as a waltz. The off-balance effect is as if the instruments are speaking on the wrong syllables. In Wisconsin, we make music of a different sort when we show preference to unexpected syllables. Take, for example, Gillett, which is JILL-it. Boaz is not "boze," but BO-az. And there's New BER-lin. Struggle as we might to be phonetically correct, how can we follow rules when there aren't any? It's not Bos-KOE-buhl, WAW-puk- aw and Muh-ZAHM-uh-nee. First second and third syllables are each favored, in order, in Boscobel, Waupaca and Mazomanie: BOSS-kuh-bell, Wah- PACK-uh and may-zoh-MAY- nee.
Against all reason we speak Vienna with an "eye" sound. But it's not Germanic tongues that tangle most. The French may have ceded the Wisconsin territory to the British in 1763, but they left behind the city whose name should be pronounced "bell-WAH." If you call it that when asking for directions, you'll never find your way to Beloit.
The "sheen" that ends Prairie du Chien would, to a French speaker, be "shee-EN," with a nasalized "n" on the end. Word pairs that are otherwise simple can set up illogical hurdles to pronunciation. Sportscasters who call it GREEN Bay make us snort. But why do we call it Green BAY, as if there are other green things nearby and we mean to refer only to the water? Still, green is GREEN in Spring GREEN. Why? Why, for that matter, is it Sauk CITY but never BEAVER Dam?
Many of us no doubt mangle names drawn from Native American languages, without even knowing it. Look how even the tribal name of the Ojibwa was so long mangled as "Chippewa." Oshkosh is named for the chief whose name was spelled that way, but it's also spelled as the Brooklyn- sounding "Oiscoss." Both spellings turn up in the 1827 Treaty of Little Butte des Morts, a pronunciation challenge in itself. It's no mystery why, history tells us, the chief was also called "Clam."
But we're led astray even within the context of probably- garbled Indian names, especially in the matter of our "aukees." If it's Mil-WAH-kee, Peh- WAH-kee and Oh-ZAW-kee, then why is Waunakee not Wah-NAH-kee, instead of Wah- nuh-KEE?
And then there's . . . Oconomowoc.
It could be a childhood phonics test, with its perfectly alternating hard and soft "O"s. The Wisconsin Historical Society says it's a corruption of "Coo-no-mo-wauk," a Pottawatomie term referring to a nearby waterfall, and that tired pioneers punned it as "I can no mo' walk."
Even the original pronunciation and meaning of "Wisconsin" are lost to us. Its listed translations range from "gathering of waters" and "river of red stone" to "river of the great rock" which, though picturesque, could hardly fit on license plates. The Historical Society says it's the English spelling of a French version of a Native American word. French explorer Jacques Marquette garbled it immediately in 1673, spelling it both "Meskousing" and "Miskous."
Be thankful, then, for failed translations and mispronunciations. Otherwise, instead of "On, Wisconsin!" we'd all be singing "On, Miskous!" But that's better than singing another translation of our state name: "On, Holes in the Bank of a Stream in Which Birds Nest!"
It would be easy to pronounce, though.

good news for geezers?

The next few decades will see an explosion in the percentage of Americans over the age of 65, but the economic and social impact of this baby boomer sunset may be gentler than had been feared because of a significant drop in the percentage of older people with disabilities, a new federal study has concluded.
Released yesterday, the United States Census Bureau's 243-page report on the aging population, among the largest and most comprehensive on the subject that the bureau has ever compiled, showed that today's older Americans are markedly different from previous generations. They are more prosperous, better educated and healthier, and those differences will only accelerate as the first boomers hit retirement age in 2011.
"Older Americans, when compared to older Americans even 20 years ago, are showing substantially less disability, and that benefit applies to men and to women," said Richard J. Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging, on whose behalf the study was conducted. "All of this speaks to an improved quality of life."
What this suggests, Dr. Hodes said, is that while many of these older Americans will eventually become disabled, it will happen later with more of the years beyond 65 free of disability — an increase in what scientists call health expectancy.
And while, as baby boomers age, the growing ranks of the infirm will become a substantial drain on government coffers and devour health care resources, the total impact may not be as devastating as once feared, Dr. Hodes said.
The study showed that the percentage of those over 65 who had a disability that the report described as "a substantial limitation in a major life activity" fell to 19.7 percent in 1999 from 26.2 percent in 1982. There were signs the trend would continue.
Richard Suzman, head of the Behavioral and Social Research Program for the National Institute on Aging, said there was disagreement among those analyzing the results about why this drop occurred. But they assumed, he said, that it was at least partly a result of today's older Americans' being better educated and more prosperous than previous generations.
"People today have a better health expectancy than did their predecessors," Mr. Suzman said. "Education, in particular, is a particularly powerful factor in both life expectancy and health expectancy, though truthfully, we're not quite sure why."
Dr. Hodes cautioned that the growing obesity rate in America may neutralize the positive trend.
The new study, "65+ in the United States: 2005," involved no fresh research but was an effort to draw together all of the relevant information on America's aging population from nearly a dozen federal agencies, said Charles Louis Kincannon, director of the Census Bureau.
"The report tells us that the face of America is changing," he said.
In 1900, Mr. Kincannon said, there were 120,000 Americans over age 85, about 0.1 percent of the population. Today there are more than four million, about 1 percent. Indeed, Mr. Kincannon said, it is the nation's fastest-growing age group.
In July 2003, there were 35.9 million Americans over the age of 65, about 12 percent of the population. By 2030, federal officials predict, there will be 72 million older people, about 20 percent of Americans.
And they will be a substantially different class of people than previous generations. In 1959, 35 percent of people over 65 lived in poverty. By 2003, that figure had dropped to 10 percent. The proportion of older Americans with a high school diploma rose to 71.5 percent in 2003 from 17 percent in 1950.
All of these trends are expected to accelerate, and soon. "The future older population is likely to be better educated than the current older population, especially when baby boomers start reaching age 65," the report concluded. "Their increased levels of education may accompany better health, higher incomes and more wealth, and consequently higher standards of living in retirement."
And as younger workers become scarcer, many companies will have to find ways to convince their older workers to stay on the job longer, Mr. Kincannon said.
The report was not all good news.
Divorce is on the rise among older Americans, the study found, leading to concerns that broken families combined with low birth rates among baby boomers may create a situation where fewer people are available or willing to help care for their aging relatives, pushing even more of the burden onto government.
Also, the drop in poverty has not happened across all population groups. "There are subgroups among the old who still have fairly high levels of poverty, including older women, and especially those who live alone," said Victoria A. Velkoff, chief of the aging studies branch at the Census Bureau.
Ms. Velkoff said that while the aging population was more diverse than previous generations, poverty hit blacks and Hispanics, especially women, harder than whites. While 10 percent of older white women lived in poverty in 2003, 21.4 percent of older Hispanic women and 27.4 percent of older black women did.

Not even a geezer

This is sad. He was such a good player in a small ball town. Really, the star of Minneapolis for a number of years. Probably could not live a life after baseball....

MINNEAPOLIS Mar 6, 2006 (AP)— Kirby Puckett died Monday, a day after the Hall of Fame outfielder had a stroke at his Arizona home, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 44.

sad waste of a car....

The Plot Thickens in Ferrari CrashA gun's magazine found near the wreckage may be connected to the accident, and a Scottish bank says it might own the destroyed car.By Richard Winton and David PiersonTimes Staff WritersPublished February 28, 2006The mystery deepened Monday in the case of the puzzling crash last week of a $1-million Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu.Sheriff's detectives said Monday that they believe a gun's magazine discovered near the wreckage is connected to the crash, and they plan to interview an unnamed person who they believe was in the car with Swedish game machine entrepreneur Stefan Eriksson.The crash has also garnered the attention of a leading Scottish bank, which has informed sheriff's investigators that it may own the destroyed car. At the same time, detectives are trying to figure out why another exotic car in Eriksson's extensive collection, a Mercedes SLR, was listed as stolen by Scotland Yard in London, said Sheriff's Sgt. Phil Brooks.The totaled Ferrari was one of two Enzos that Eriksson brought into the United States from England along with the Mercedes SLR, Brooks said. But detectives concluded that the totaled vehicle did not have appropriate papers and was not "street legal" for driving in California, he said.Detectives have been trying for nearly a week to sort out what exactly happened last Tuesday morning when Eriksson's Enzo — one of only 400 ever made — smashed into a telephone pole, totaling the car. Eriksson told deputies that he was the passenger and that a man he knew only as "Dietrich" was behind the wheel. But detectives have been openly skeptical of the story, noting that Eriksson had a bloody lip and that the only blood they found in the car was on the driver's-side air bag.Brooks said detectives have called in Eriksson for another interview. Eriksson has declined through the security guard at his gated Bel-Air estate to comment. An attorney who has previously represented Eriksson in civil matters, Ashley Posner, also declined to comment Monday.But some city leaders in Malibu, where the crash has been the talk of the town, were less circumspect."The guy should have had an IQ test," said Malibu Mayor Pro Tem Ken Kearsley, who has been following the coverage of the crash with a half-grin. The driver's IQ "couldn't come up above 60 if he was doing 120 on PCH," Kearsley said.But in fact, Brooks said Monday, the car was traveling 162 mph when it crashed, far faster than the 120 mph originally believed. The Ferrari, with just a few inches of undercarriage clearance, hit a bump at a crest in the road, sending the vehicle airborne and into the power pole, Brooks said.Brooks said they are investigating whether someone else may have been present and are trying to determine whether the recovered gun component is connected to the case. He declined to say more about the find or elaborate on the status of the Scottish bank and Scotland Yard in the case.The question of whether Eriksson was the driver is key to the case, Brooks said. Eriksson's blood-alcohol level was 0.09%, higher than the legal limit for operating a motor vehicle.Sheriff's officials are still trying to confirm witness reports that the Ferrari might have been drag racing with another car, and officials aren't sure if that's what happened.Sheriff's officials said Eriksson was an executive with a game company that attempted to take on Sony and Nintendo, but the firm collapsed last year.In Malibu, officials said they are not sure what to make of the accident.Kearsley said the stretch of road was not known for drag racing, but for run-of-the-mill speeders. He said the Sheriff's Department has had success for the last year and a half using radar and lasers to catch overzealous drivers. The lasers are not detectable to drivers, he said."It's straight as an arrow where the accident was," he said. "You really have to go out of your way to hit a telephone pole."Carol Moss, a longtime Malibu resident, activist and meditation group leader, said the accident came as no surprise."It was horrendous, but Malibu is full of idiots," she said. "There are a lot of wild cars and irresponsible people. The roads are dangerous. You always see people with those sorts of cars. You see some wild behavior."But, in keeping with her Zen frame of mind, Moss extended an olive branch. "Everyone is welcome to attend the meditation group. Even the drag racer."