Math never tasted
so good!

By Lauren Fritsky
Times Staff Writer

Holy Family University held a pie-eating contest on its campus last week, but no one called the winner "No. 1."
That’s because another number — and another sort of pie — took center stage on the campus that day.
The school hosted its first Pi Day Celebration in honor of the enigmatic, never-ending number &Mac185;, commonly noted as 3.14, the reason for its March 14 celebration.
The school’s nine-member math honor society, Kappa Mu Epsilon, organized the event, which also included a pi digit-reciting contest and the society’s annual high school math championship.
"We figured we’d make it an all-day event," said Sister M. Marcella Louise Wallowicz, the group’s moderator and an assistant math professor at the school.
During the contest, students from Nazareth Academy, Archbishop Ryan, Father Judge, Conwell-Egan and Holy Ghost Preparatory high schools completed a written test of algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus problems.
The winner in Division I was Joseph Knowles, a sophomore at Holy Ghost Prep. Nazareth Academy sophomore Meghan Dondero was the runner-up. Holy Ghost Prep. ranked as the top school in the division.
Archbishop Ryan seniors Jillian Jourdain and Philip Kozak placed first and second, respectively, in Division 2. Father Judge ranked as the top school overall in Division 2.
This is the first year Holy Family held the high school competition on the same date as Pi Day, which is also Albert Einstein’s birthday.
A popular number in algebra and calculus, pi is expressed as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
What makes pi special, its fans say, is that its digits stretch on forever — computers have calculated them to more than a trillion decimal places — and that none of its number sequences repeat.
It’s also found in everyday things, according to Kappa Mu member Shawn Kane, 21.
"It measures dimension, and everything has dimension, from a circle to, well, everything," he said.
Seven students participated in the pie-eating contest, with sophomore sports marketing management major Chris Ehly emerging as the winner. Sophomore nursing major Ruby Bhatti bested four classmates to win the pi-reciting contest by saying the first 51 digits of the number. She won a calculator and a certificate.
"I practiced before class today," said Bhatti, 22, who had only just memorized the numbers that day.
Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, holds the current world record. He recited 67,890 digits over 24 hours in 2005. A local man, Marc Umile of Upper Darby, became the North American record-holder in January after reciting 12,887 digits.
Sister Wallowicz didn’t expect those records to be surpassed at Holy Family. Pi Day — which later included a pizza pie party — was just another way to get her group excited about math.
"They’ve really gotten more enthusiastic about it," she said. ••
Reporter Lauren Fritsky can be reached at 215-354-3038 or lfritsky@phillynews.com