How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs
Over the next couple of days on wikihow.com, you will be able to read Pi-Dye's third featured article: How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs. The experiment is read and it's fun, so try it out!
Last year, at about this time, we wrote an article on wikihow.com called How to Find a Gift for a Self-Proclaimed Nerd or Geek to give advice to the clueless, the concerned, and the curious about what makes nerds and geeks go gaga around Christmas time. It was selected by the folks at wikihow.com as a featured article, and it was a hit! At this point, after being online for a year, it has received 45, 557 reads. We even received a little bit of fan mail from it, including this note from a thankful mother:
thank-you! I have a son who is notoriously difficult to buy for. He doesn't like to let on, but he is a geek. I've now purchased a binary clock, a marshmallow shooter and some science T-shirts for him. Very helpful wikiHow!!!
Aside from being a whole lot of fun to write the article and see people's reactions, it was also nice to see people actually use the information and benefit from it.
So, intrigued, we wrote another article in March called How to Celebrate Pi Day that included step-by-step instructions for getting the full Pi Day experience. Again, it was selected by the peeps at wikihow as a featured article, and it did better than the first! As of right now, it has 65,521 reads. This one obviously wasn't as practical as the first, so we didn't receive mail regarding how much it helped them--we just heard from geeks like ourselves how cool it was that someone has written an article like this.
Well, we took a break for a little bit, mostly because we didn't have anything to write about; however, at this point, we were addicted, and we wanted to write more articles about pi to hopefully get more people interested in math even if just for a minute. So about one month ago, we wrote the article mentioned at the top, How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs and hoped for the best. The intent was to create a humorous rendition of the Buffon Needle Problem. Well, it worked. It was selected as a featured article a couple of days ago, and we are currently at 129,241 reads and counting! Aside from all the nice reads, we've received mail like this that helps us know that we accomplished our goal:
My 7th grader was amazed and my dogs thank you too, as they got to eat the hot dogs (of course they had to be in another room for the actual experiment or we couldn't have concluded it)!
And another:
this is awesome, perfect for my teenager--thanks! :)
And so on.
In my perspective, it is always a good day in math when 129,000 people stop their daily grind to think about math. It makes the world just that much more open to innovation, creativity, and problem-solving for at least a minute, but hopefully long enough to make a difference.
Last year, at about this time, we wrote an article on wikihow.com called How to Find a Gift for a Self-Proclaimed Nerd or Geek to give advice to the clueless, the concerned, and the curious about what makes nerds and geeks go gaga around Christmas time. It was selected by the folks at wikihow.com as a featured article, and it was a hit! At this point, after being online for a year, it has received 45, 557 reads. We even received a little bit of fan mail from it, including this note from a thankful mother:
thank-you! I have a son who is notoriously difficult to buy for. He doesn't like to let on, but he is a geek. I've now purchased a binary clock, a marshmallow shooter and some science T-shirts for him. Very helpful wikiHow!!!
Aside from being a whole lot of fun to write the article and see people's reactions, it was also nice to see people actually use the information and benefit from it.
So, intrigued, we wrote another article in March called How to Celebrate Pi Day that included step-by-step instructions for getting the full Pi Day experience. Again, it was selected by the peeps at wikihow as a featured article, and it did better than the first! As of right now, it has 65,521 reads. This one obviously wasn't as practical as the first, so we didn't receive mail regarding how much it helped them--we just heard from geeks like ourselves how cool it was that someone has written an article like this.
Well, we took a break for a little bit, mostly because we didn't have anything to write about; however, at this point, we were addicted, and we wanted to write more articles about pi to hopefully get more people interested in math even if just for a minute. So about one month ago, we wrote the article mentioned at the top, How to Calculate Pi by Throwing Frozen Hot Dogs and hoped for the best. The intent was to create a humorous rendition of the Buffon Needle Problem. Well, it worked. It was selected as a featured article a couple of days ago, and we are currently at 129,241 reads and counting! Aside from all the nice reads, we've received mail like this that helps us know that we accomplished our goal:
My 7th grader was amazed and my dogs thank you too, as they got to eat the hot dogs (of course they had to be in another room for the actual experiment or we couldn't have concluded it)!
And another:
this is awesome, perfect for my teenager--thanks! :)
And so on.
In my perspective, it is always a good day in math when 129,000 people stop their daily grind to think about math. It makes the world just that much more open to innovation, creativity, and problem-solving for at least a minute, but hopefully long enough to make a difference.
