Alpha, beta, gamma. The first three letters of the Greek alphabet. That is usually as far as it goes, till you get introduced to circles and the math associated with them. Unless of course, you’ve been exposed to English fiction and/or Hollywood cinema and the Life of Piscine Molitor Patel!
Critical to the description of circles (radius, diameter, circumference, area), the Greek letter Pi (π), is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. π is considered approximately equal to 22/7 or 3.14. A little more advanced math will take you to angles of circles, and the relationship between degrees, radians and π. A full circle has an angle of 360 degrees, which is also equal to 2π radians.
A Pi clock is generally one that uses radians to represent time. π radians is half a circle so a full 12 hours would be 2π. There are a few variations of these that I’ve seen, most of which use the π to represent the angle formed by the number on the clock.
Recently, we came across this very creatively designed Pi clock that has done it quite differently.
Designed by the staff and students of the Mathematics Department of IISER, Pune the clock has the equivalent of each number from 1 to 12, in terms of the numeric value of π.
So 3 = π, and 10 = π π. These are the easy ones. Check them all out… with calculators if necessary!
As the clock says, Every π Counts! Thanks Raghuram and Nita!
arathimy 