On Being Sheldonesque, Parte Dos

Three years ago I posted a short piece about being Sheldonesque -- that is, somewhat like Dr. Sheldon Coooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD, ScD. As he would say, "OMG, right?"

I am not Sheldonesque in most ways -- I am much shorter and have a much shorter string of letters after my name, for example, I am not a theoretical physicist and I am not (I hope) quite as insensitive to other people and their reactions to me. I once remarked to my brother that people said I was like Sheldon, and he said he couldn't see it. He may have been being kind. His kids certainly have seen it.

At any rate, Sheldon and I do have that quirk, mentioned in the aforementioned post, of wanting to share all sorts of fascinating information with people and sometimes being surprised that people do not find it all as fascinating as I (we) do. I am blessed to have one friend, however, who is as amused as I am by these tidbits, at least most of the time. Thank you, Lee. It's nice to know someone cares.

This morning I opened an email from Lee reminding me that this coming Saturday will be Pi Day -- a day that occurs once a century when the date lines up with the first few digits of pi: 3.1415. Saturday will be 3/14/15. I will be Sheldonesque enough to say that I did know this and that Damien has already prepared a simple post for his blog for this Saturday.

This particular concatenation of digits -- 3, 14, 15 -- does indeed only line up once a century, but Pi Day is celebrated every year on March 14 (3/14). Prepare a nice pie and have it ready to share with friends and family on Saturday. It must be round, of course, because ... well, everyone knows the cornbread joke.

By the way, the Pi Day date works with the standard American way of writing dates -- month/day/year [in two digits]. But in countries where common usage is day/month/year, one would have to have variations, and since any combination would require either that the fourth month (April) have 31 days, which it does not, or that there be a fourteenth month (which there is not), it won't fly. What one can do, as an approximation, is use July 22 -- 22/7 in that other format -- because 22 divided by 7 comes out to 3.14. But somehow that is not as satisfying.

Sheldon would no doubt tell us what the Stardate equivalent would be, but even I am not that Sheldonesque.

And finally, although next year will  be 3/14/16 and not technically as good as this year, pi is 3.14159... -- which rounds up to 3.1416.

Okay, that was not really finally because Saturday is also the birthday of Albert Einstein who had the good humor to be born on March 14, 1879.

At any rate, in honor of the recent passing of Leonard Nimoy, whose portrayal of Spock influenced Jim Parson's portrayal of Sheldon Cooper, may you all live long and prosper!

And finally, the real finally: This would be even better if this were On Being Sheldonesque, Part 3.1415. If my eidetic memory, failing sadly though it is, reminds me, I can use that next year. When it will be 3.1416, of course.