It’s Pi Day, March 14, for the first digits in the decimal expansion of pi: 3.14159…

I have a t-shirt sort of like that design. It starts with the first digits of pi but it keeps going (skipping a few digits in the middle!) until it gets to my birthday: 121346, which occurs about 5.6 million digits in.

Important? Not where my birthday occurs – that’s not important. But pi is important for a variety of mathematical reasons as I have written about before.

Pi is also a reminder about truth. Some things are true, and your opinion and mine don’t matter. “I think pi should be 3.1 (or 3.2 as the state of Indiana tried to legislate in 1897).” Nope. Doesn’t work that way. Neither do boys identifying as girls. On a television talk show a few months ago, a panelist said something like, “Parents are understandably upset that their daughters are forced to compete against boys.” To which another panelist said, “They’re not boys!” Uh…yes, they are. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, not a believer as far as I know, took a lot of heat for saying something like, “You don’t get to be a woman by declaring yourself to be one.”

So enjoy a pot pie or piece of pie on Pi Day and remember, there is such a thing as truth.

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” “What is truth?” retorted Pilate. (John 18.37, 38, NIV)

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1.17, NIV)