Math Holiday: Pi Day Geek events to celebrate on March 14: 1794 – Eli Whitney is granted a patent for the cotton gin. 1994 – Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released. 1995 – Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to ride to space on-board a Russian launch vehicle. March 14 birthdays of geeky note: […]
Standard Holiday: Groundhog Day (USA and Canada) 1887 – In Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania the first Groundhog Day is observed. Geek Events to celebrate on February 2: 1935 – Leonarde Keeler tests the first polygraph machine. That’s a fact. February 2 birthdays of geeky note: 1522 – Lodovico Ferrari, Italian mathematician (d. 1565). Ferrari is attributed with […]
Geek Holiday: Phi Day! The fabulously irrational number φ has two decimal representations (1.618… and -0.618…) so it can be celebrated both on January 6 and on June 18. Crazy, huh? Leave it up to those wacky mathematicians to create two viable party dates from one number. Double the φun, right? Phi is also important to […]