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Pi Day Challenge: Solve Stellar Math Problems With NASA

In honor of the mathematical constant pi – and its many uses in space exploration – the annual NASA Pi Day Challenge offers four math problems involving real NASA missions and science.
In honor of the mathematical constant pi – and its many uses in space exploration – the annual NASA Pi Day Challenge offers four math problems involving real NASA missions and science.
NASA

The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory celebrates the mathematical marvel with a set of problems involving real space missions.

Pi Day is the annual tribute to the mathematical constant pi, whose infinite number of decimals is usually rounded to 3.14. So what better day to celebrate than March 14? To find pi, aka the Greek letter π, you simply divide any circle’s circumference by its diameter. It’s a ratio that’s indispensable to NASA missions studying Earth, Mars, and beyond.

This Pi Day marks the 10th year that the Education Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has celebrated this wondrously useful number with the agency’s Pi Day Challenge. Students can put their math mettle to the test to solve real problems faced by NASA scientists and engineers.

Using pi to tackle this quartet of problems, students can:

Answers to all four challenge questions will be available on March 15.

The NASA Pi Day Challenge is accompanied by other pi-related resources for educators, K-12 students, and parents, including lessons and teachable moments, articles, downloadable posters, and illustrated web/mobile backgrounds. More than 30 puzzlers from previous challenges are also available.

More about the NASA Pi Day Challenge from JPL:

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/nasapidaychallenge/

Melissa Pamer
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif
626-314-4928
melissa.pamer@jpl.nasa.gov

2023-032