Bihar’s math enthusiasts join the world to celebrate Pi Day

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(Free-Press-Release.com) March 17, 2010 -- MOTIHARI — Pi is one of the few concepts in mathematics whose mention evokes a response of recognition and interest in those not concerned professionally with the subject. The computation of Pi is virtually the only topic from the most ancient stratum of mathematics that is still of serious interest to modern mathematical research.

A group of math enthusiasts in Motihari on March 14 (3/14) joined the world in celebrating the Pi Day.

Even though it was a holiday (Sunday), students and teachers joined in large numbers in an event organised by “Jai Bihar Club” at the premises of Chainpur High School in East Champaran district.

A felicitation ceremony was organised for mathematics teachers who were nominated by students themselves for their innovative teaching of the subject.

Speaking on the occasion, Ramraj Pathak, a mathematics teacher who is due to retire next year, urged young teachers to be innovative in teaching maths. “Math could be made an interesting subject by you if you have enough ingenuity and innovativeness to search new venues of instruction. A good mentor knows that in each child is an undiscovered talent. Persistence and patience is the key. Don’t give up on a seemingly ’slow’ child. Each child has his own pace of learning,” Guruji, as he is popularly known, said.

A plenty of mathematical games and contests like holding a Pi memorization and recitation contest, discussing different ways to derive Pi, calculate the average error experienced when using 3.14 as an approximation, finding name, birthday, etc. in Pi, and discussing what things would be like without Pi (the earth being a square and so on) made students enjoy stressing their brains.

Purushottam Kumar Singh, a 9-year-old boy who can recite 590 digits of Pi, was declared “Mr Pi”. He was given Rs 5000 as cash prize. Rajan Kumar, Prince, Tikuli Rai and Bablu Sharma were given bi-cycles while several others won cash prizes and books on “Vedic Mathematics”.

Students were also reminded of India’s contribution, particularly that of Bihar, to the world of mathematics-the mother of science.

The value of Pi was first calculated by Budhayan, who explained the concept of what is now known as the Pythagorean Theorem. British scholars in 1999 officially published Budhayan’s works dating back to the 6th Century. The old Sanskrit text Baudhayan Shulba Sutra of the 6th Century BCE mentions this ratio as approximately equal to 3. Bihar born Aryabhatt, in 499 BCE, worked out the value of Pi to the 4th decimal place, as 3(177/1250) = 3.1416. A few centuries later, in 825 CE, the Arab mathematician, Mohammed Ibna Musa, said that “this value 62832/20000 has been given by the Hindus (Indians)”.

“Biharis have good brains for mathematics. However, because of the growing shortage of maths teachers and widespread use of unqualified replacements, students see the subject as scary, therefore, have developed hatred for it,” said Kunwar Sanjeev Singh, the founder member of Jai Bihar Club in this remote part of the country.

“The problem is not with the subject, but the way we teach it. It is a simple subject but we make it look very difficult and make the children run away from it,” he said.

Singh promised to organise the event on broader scale next year.

Students and teachers also remembered Albert Einstein as the great scientist’s birthday coincides with the Pi Day.

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