The person credited with “inventing” Pi Day is physicist Larry Shaw, who created the celebration in 1988 at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco.

Quick Scoop

  • Pi Day is celebrated every year on March 14 (3/14), matching the first three digits of pi: 3.14.
  • Larry Shaw organized the first Pi Day event in 1988 at the Exploratorium, featuring circular parades and pie-eating to honor mathematics and pi.
  • In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives officially recognized March 14 as National Pi Day.
  • The date is extra fun because it’s also Albert Einstein’s birthday, which many teachers and science fans like to highlight.

Over time, what started as a quirky museum celebration turned into a worldwide math-and-pie mini‑holiday, with schools, bakeries, and nerdy friend groups joining in every March 14.

Tiny historical side note

  • Pi itself has been studied since ancient times; Archimedes is often credited with the first very accurate approximation of pi around 250 BC.
  • The symbol π began being used in 1706 by William Jones and later became popular through Leonhard Euler.

TL;DR: Larry Shaw at San Francisco’s Exploratorium “invented” Pi Day in 1988, and it was later officially recognized in the U.S. in 2009—now it’s a global excuse to celebrate math (and eat pie).

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