Is Kate Bush having a happy Pi Day?
March 14 is Pi Day. The event, though rarely observed outside math class, is so named because the U.S. date abbreviation of 3/14 resembles the first digits of the famed transcendental number.
For those of you who neglected your studies, pi is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and has an infinite number of digits. One person who didn't forget is pop singer Kate Bush, whose latest album includes a song about a man obsessed with the number.
Bush sings dozens of pi's digits in the album. But according to one math fan, Bush slipped up after the 53rd digit.
The song lyrics indicate that Bush goofed. But one fan defended her honor in a posting on the Web site: "Kate Bush was absolutely correct. When she sings the song, she sings 'zero' and not 'three one.' This is merely an error in the printed lyrics. I have listened to the song over and over again, and I assure you, it is correctly sung and incorrectly listed in the lyrics."
However, that doesn't explain why Bush omitted the 79th digit and the 21 that come after it, before resuming with digit 100.
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.
