Happy Birthday, Einstein

“Pi Day Princeton proves that Princeton's businesses, academic institutions, non-profits, residents and scholars value creativity, collaboration and community."

That verdict from Mimi Omiecinski, Maestro of this past weekend’s four-day celebration of Albert Einstein’s birthday (March 14), coupled with number Pi (3.14), a coincidence that spawned an endless stream of fun activities dreamed up by Omiecinski and her collaborator, Joy Chen.

Because Pi Day fell on a Monday this year, Omiecinski ambitiously decided to expand the event (which she started last year) into a four-day extravaganza, featuring fun (pie-throwing), competition (pie-eating and pi-recitation), and scientific amazement (where else but in Princeton would plasma physicists be part of the action?)

"Joy and I are thrilled with this year's success!”, wrote Omiecinski in an e-mail response to AllPrinceton.  “The town hosted over 3,100 visitors, the official website had over 16,000 visits during Geek Freak Weekend and the iPhone app had downloads from all over the world including Hong Kong, Germany, Korea, Lebanon, Australia AND Canada !!!!”, she added, with her signature emphatic exclamation points.

Local merchants joined in the celebration with all kinds of advertised sales based on some variation of the number 3.1416 (31.41% discounts, specials at $3.14).  The Bank of Princeton offered a $314.16 prize to the person who could recite the number Pi to the furthest place.  Nine-year-old Gareth Conway reached an astonishing 315 digits.  But it was a grown-up, Brian Stephens, who took the cake (pie?) by reciting Pi to 1,371 digits.

Enthuses Omiecinski, “Children of all ages seemed really excited to celebrate math and science which, for Joy and me, was the entire point of such a collaborative effort.”