Mar
17
2015

New York survivor

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Here is how this New Yorker describes his life:

“After I was born, I was the subject of a 45-minute dissertation at Columbia University. Almost all of my organs were born externally, and had to be sewn into my body. I don’t have a belly button– only a scar where my feeding tube used to be. My mother even tells me that she wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to stand, eat, or drink. But now I can rollerblade. I can do a handstand on my crutches. I’ve got a core group of friends, a girlfriend, a college degree, and I’m helping to manage a radio station at the age of 23.”

Humans New York handicap

Read more about ordinary and extraordinary New Yorkers at www.humansofnewyork.com/

Mar
14
2015

Pi: 3,14… a magical number put into music

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As you might recall from math class, pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. This irrational number—approximately 3.14159—shows up quite frequently in many mathematical applications, including geometry and trigonometry.

The first attempts to calculate pi can be traced back to ancient Babylonians, who calculated the area of a circle as three times the square of its radius, making the value of pi equal to 3. One Babylonian tablet indicated they got as close as 3.125 and later calculations by the ancient Egyptians (ca. 1650 BC) approximated pi as 3.1605.

The number today is celebrated around the world on March 14, which when written out numerically is 3.14.

On YouTube, Michael Blake decided to pay tribute to Pi. By assigning a number to each musical note, he was able to create a composition by playing out the digits of pi. View the video of his piece below.

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