Attendees enjoy Pi Day activities in front of the Parker Building

By Antonio Miguel Escorzon •

For the first time in NSU’s celebration of Pi Day, attendees formed a large human circle in front of the Parker Building on March 14. The Department of Mathematics co-hosted the event with the NSU Mathematics Club. In honor of Pi Day, attendees ate different kinds of pizzas and pies.

Jason Gershman, associate professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics, said Pi Day at NSU has been celebrated almost every year on March 14, since it represents 3.14, the first three digits of the math symbol pi.

“It’s been happening at NSU for about 15 years. [COVID-19] kind of slowed things down in March 2020, so we had a little hiccup there, but since then, we’ve been back in the last three years having full Pi Day events. It’s been very successful and a lot of fun,” Gershman said.

One of the attendees, Isha Swamy, senior computer science major and president of the NSU Mathematics Club, said it was fitting to host Pi Day in front of the Parker Building because the Department of Mathematics is located in the building.

Once many attendees arrived, Gershman gathered participants to the front of the building, giving them soft measuring tapes. The tapes were used to measure how big their human circle was.

“So every year we do a fun activity and this year we tried to form a human circle to measure pi,” Gershman said.

Gershman said the dimensions of the circle’s circumference was 1,550 centimeters and the diameter was 500 centimeters. Dividing those two yields gets 3.1, which Gershman said was a pretty close measurement to 3.14.

Swamy said that the circle forming activity was cute. She was satisfied with the turn out of people who attended.

“Dr. Gershman came up with this fun activity and it was the first time it was done,” Swamy said.

Another attendee was Mashfiqur Rahman, sophomore math major. Rahman received a $25 gift card prize at the event after he participated in the Department of Mathematics’ most recent Matrix contest and correctly answered its two questions.

“[The Matrix] was a two-part question. Both very challenging, advanced mathematical parts,” Gershman said.

Abdelkrim Bourouihiya, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics, helped provide the two questions, which are regularly posted in the department newsletter. Bourouihiya wants every NSU student, including alumni, to try the Matrix. He fashions the questions so they can be applied and understood by anyone.

“What we want about [the Matrix] is just to stimulate the curiosity of students and to make them understand that math is not only numbers and equations. So it has applications,” Bourouihiya said.

Rahman said he would like more students to participate in the Matrix and attempt to solve the problems.

“I want people to attempt to do it and see what happens, even if they do not get the correct answers,” Rahman said. “Attempting to solve problems is how I built up my mathematical ability.”

Swamy said Pi Day allows NSU students to get involved with the NSU Mathematics Club. Gershman said the event also attracted visitors from Shark Previews and hoped it made an impact on them.

“It was a fun event, great turnout. Again, being a Friday, [we got] students leaving class or coming to class in the Parker Building. So, [we] had a lot of foot traffic from classes. [We] had Shark Preview parents, Shark Preview students who are incoming sharks. Hopefully, the event impressed them as well,” Gershman said.