Pi Day can help increase interest in learning

Thursday, March 14, was Pi Day for 2019.

Pi Day celebrates the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is used in formulas in many scientific calculations.

Also, as a coincidence of fate, the day is also Albert Einstein’s birthday.

The day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant with serious and fun activities across the country and around the world. I took the opportunity to engage in two American pies, one apple and one pizza.

Of special interest this year, a developer at Google, Emma Haruka Iwao, and her team established a new record by calculating the value of pi to 31.4 trillion digits. For those thinking about what that means there are 31,415,926,535,897 digits.

Pi Day receives some attention in schools, there are websites, dinner and food specials selling for $3.14 and more creative uses every year. There is a video commercial with a woman with mathematical awareness taking a pie with a Pi symbol on the top to a party.

Most of us will agree that the foreseeable future will require more education than in past decades. Science and math are areas that are touted as necessary to be competitive individually, on organizational levels and globally. As employment goes, those positions with high levels of technological education are the most in demand. There has even been analysis by the federal government that the national projected shortage of scientists and engineers constitutes a national security exposure.

Pi Day would be a great way to draw more attention to the benefits of furthering education for all of us. The problems and issues that we as employees, investors, and citizens of the world will have to confront require more analysis skills than our parents needed. I’m touching on the concept of lifelong learning, but that is a topic for another time.

Think about the topics that we are confronting -- trade wars, climate change, religious freedoms, impact and exposure of artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and the list of big topics continues to grow.

I would add history and civics to the need for further education. Although not hard sciences, those subjects offer perspectives that are important for critical thinking and analysis. Most executives I know have strong critical thinking and historical perspectives.

Think about the impact of Halloween. Now, I am a full participant in Halloween and contribute to the annual sales. However, if we took a serious look at Pi Day, with the potential benefits of additional focus on education, especially math and sciences, we could make the day more notable.

As mentioned, I have engaged in perhaps the easiest way to recognize Pi Day. However, from a business prospective, I think we could all do more. Think about the many ways for next year.