27/11/2019

Mathematics gets a day to call its own: March 14th.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy," said William Shakespeare. Mathematics is one of them. Those who study it know that it is everywhere: in GPS (Global Positioning System), in the planning of economic and social systems, in the processing of CT scans and MRIs, and even in everyday human activities, such as music and art. With such omnipresence, it was more than time for it to have its own day.

UNESCO officially established, this Tuesday (26), the International Day of Mathematics (IDM) on March 14. Led by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the project encourages schools, universities and other institutions to use the date to create events and activities that show the importance of mathematics for students and for society.

March 1Wednesdays, written as 3/14 in the American format, was already known as Pi Day (π), a mathematical constant that begins with 3.14159265359… and has an infinite number of other digits in sequence.

An official website for the celebration has been created so that mathematicians can register the activities they will be promoting. To liven up the festivities and stimulate creativity, the organization will announce a new theme each year to mark the occasion. In the first edition, in 2020, the theme is "Mathematics is in Everything".

And there's already an event scheduled in Brazil. The Maria Antonia University Center, in São Paulo, will host the Matemateca exhibition, which will be open to the public throughout March 2020. Three-dimensional tic-tac-toe, works representing unusual surfaces, games with unconventional dice, statistical experiments, and labyrinths are among the exhibition's attractions.

Given the global scenario of low female representation in STEM fields, the project also encourages remembering, on this date, the trajectories and contributions of mathematicians such as Hypatia of Alexandria (c. 355-415) and Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017) to the area, stimulating a new generation of girls to explore numbers.