~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
March 14, 2013

Todays Quote: “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.” Albert Einstein

★~ National Pi Day:

Pi (π) is the mathematical constant that has been known for almost 4000 years. Its value is the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean space or the ratio of a circle’s area to the square of its radius. The value of pi is approximately equal to 3.14159265, but it is an irrational number and its decimal representation never ends or repeats.

The lower case Greek letter π is used because it is the first letter of the Greek work περίμετρος (perimeter), which probably refers to its use in the formula perimeter divided by diameter equals the constant for all circles. The concept of π has become the most common ground between mathematicians and non-mathematicians. (I don’t really get it, but I appreciate the fact other people are excited by the concept and I thing the wheel graphic at the top of the page is cool–math has never been my thing.)

Coincidentally, today is also  the birthday of Albert Einstein, a man who was not unfamiliar with theories and mathematical concepts.

★~Potato Chip Day:

Now here is a celebration I totally get!

An Irish chef named George Crum invented potato chips in Saratoga Springs in 1853. One day, a picky customer kept sending his fried potatoes back to the kitchen, complaining that they were too thick and soggy. Crum responded by slicing the potatoes so thin that they couldn’t be eaten with a fork. The customer was so pleased with Crum’s crispy creation that they became a regular item on the restaurant’s menu

Americans consume 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips each year. It’s the nation’s favorite snack food! We love them as companions to sandwiches, dunked in dip, or as a midday snack. I just love them to pieces.

The best potato chip in the whole entire universe is Classic Lay’s.  Just in case you were wondering.

★~ Today in History:

♥~ 1950 – The F.B.I. released its first Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. The first person to make the list was Thomas James Holden.

♥~ 1959 – Elvis Presley made the album charts, but no one would have known by the title of the disk. For LP Fans Only was the first LP ever issued without the artist’s name to be found anywhere on the cover — front or back.

♥~ 1968 – After two seasons on television, ABC-TV showed the last episode of Batman, starring Adam West and Burt Ward as Robin. The first Batman episode was Hi Diddle Riddle, shown on January 12, 1966. The pilot program for Batman cost $300,000 — quite expensive by 1966 standards.

♥~ 1990 – Church officials in Belgium discovered that eight nuns had sold their convent in Bruges for $1.4 million, moved to France, and bought a castle.

♥~ 2005 – Thieves broke into an storage hall in Steinfurt, Germany, and stole 200 fully loaded gumball machines.

★~Born Today: 

♥~ 1879 – Albert Einstein Nobel Prize-winning physicist [1921]: developed the Theory of Relativity; died Apr 18, 1955

♥~ 1911 – Akira Yoshizawa was considered to be the grandmaster of origami. He is credited with raising origami from a craft to a living art.

♥~ 1933 – Michael Caine (Maurice Micklewhite) Academy Award-winning actor: Hannah and Her Sisters [1986], The Cider House Rules [1999]

♥~ 1945 – Michael Martin Murphey song writer, singer: Wildfire, Carolina in the Pines, What’s Forever For, Geronimo’s Cadillac, Renegade, A Long Line of Love.

♥~ 1948 – Billy Crystal, City Slickers, Throw Mama from the Train, Soap, When Harry Met Sally

★~ Did You Know: Habemus Papam Franciscum  Below are some Odd facts about the process of choosing a new Pope. (Click If you would rather have facts about Pi)

♥~ Origins of the conclave: The conclave, which means “with a key” in Latin, got its start during the tumultuous 13th century, when the Catholic Church spent two separate periods of a few years without a pope. Fed up, in 1243 the people of Rome locked up the cardinals until they decided on the successor.

♥~ Modern and ancient: While the original reason for the lock-in was to force a decision, now the silence in the Sistine Chapel is meant to allow the cardinals time for quiet reflection and prayer to hear the Holy Spirit. (The Holy Spirit is supposed to reveal to the cardinals the spirit’s choice for the next pope.)  The church forbids cellphones, Internet, newspapers and other modern communication into the conclave, and sweeps the room for electronic bugs prior to its start. When Pope Benedict XVI was elected in 2005, the Vatican raised the floor of the Sistine Chapel to place electronic jamming equipment beneath it, lest any Internet-addicted cardinals be tempted to send a text.

♥~ White smoke, black smoke: During the conclave, the cardinals vote for their preferred choice of pope in the morning and the evening, every day until they come to a decision. For outsiders watching, the smoke exiting the Vatican’s chimney will be the only clue to the process: Black smoke means the cardinals are deadlocked, while white smoke means that two-thirds of the cardinals agree and the next pope is chosen. Historically, to make the black smoke, people added damp straw to the fire. But it turns out that sealing wax on the ballots also affected the color of the smoke, so when they did away with the sealing wax ballots in the 1950s, the smoke signals were ambiguous. Now the church adds chemical colorants to the smoke signals to create a clear-as-day sign to onlookers outside the Vatican.

♥~ The Man Who Will Be Pope: In theory, any baptized male Catholic can rise to the highest office, but in practice, the front-runners are almost all cardinals. Once chosen, the new pope picks a new name, which typically signals his allegiance to a specific theology or set of priorities. For instance, when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, he chose the patron saint of Europe to signal his interest in reviving European Catholicism, while the two Pope John Pauls in the 20th century were conveying continuity with the ideas of the Vatican II Council, which addressed Catholic relations with the modern world. (The pope who began the council was John XXIII and the pope who finished it was Paul VI.) The tradition of choosing a new name actually hearkens back to the Bible, Bevans said. For instance, after a vision of an angel wrestling with him, old testament character Jacob renamed himself Israel, which means “contended with God.” And the first leader of the church, St. Peter, was known as Simon when he was one of Jesus Christ’s apostles.

♥~ Father fashion: Once the pope is chosen, he is the pope effective immediately, with no time to prep a fancy speech or plan his next actions. To make sure that the newly elected pope is ready to immediately step out onto the Vatican balcony and greet the people in style, the church has several white robes in multiple sizes waiting. The pope used to don an all-red outfit, until Pope Pius the V did away with the red getup in favor of white in 1566. The last traces of the ancient fashion remain in the red shoes, cap and cape the pope wears. Benedict XVI favored designer $200 loafers made by a cobbler in Rome.

Source: Rev. Stephen Bevans, a theology professor at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.[Saint or Slacker? Test Your Religious Knowledge]

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Interesting side note on this day of Pi: Neha Ramu  12, achieved the highest possible score of 162 on the Mensa IQ test. To put it in perspective, that’s a higher IQ than Einstein, Bill Gates or Stephen Hawking, who are all believed to have a score around 160. Those scores aren’t Pi in the sky, that is for sure.

Hope everyone has a Terrific Thursday. My boy is off school today and tomorrow and we have a bunch of errands to run. I will celebrate Pi day by walking around in a circle and eating potato chips.  And you?

Odd Loves Company!

PI!