RKMBs Forums .::Important::. off topic and offensive posts What is your favorite RKMBs moment?

no, it's favorite moment, not hourly occurance.

Bsams adapting a really gay looking, smiley face avatar is my faovorite. Thats for sure ;p plus I'm a self righteous whore and a hypocrite. FYI!

This thread is almost a year old already..in a few days... wow.

and my favorite moment here ..is the one that has yet to happen. In fact, it could happen in 2 minutes..or two years!

Seriously, it's like asking someone what their favorite moment in their life is.....one cannot answer that until one's life is over!

Actually,....ONE of my favorite moments here was when I came back after being gone for eight months.... the welcome back I received was very touching.

My favorite was when Wenesday introduced me to this site, and I first found out that people here are crazier than I am!

29) A long time ago people thought there was an illness attached to trying to 'square a cirle' called Morbus Cyclometricus.
30) Pi in fraction form is - 837393900/266550757.
31) After saying (correctly) that pi/2 is the value of x between 1 and 2 for which cos x vanishes Edmund Landau was dismissed from his position in 1934 for teaching in an 'un-German' style.
32) In the following series of natural numbers, constructed by taking successively larger strings of digits from the beginning of the decimal expansion of the number pi: 3, 31, 314, 31415, 314159, 3141592, etc. the first thousand numbers of the series include only 4 primes.
33) If one were to find the circumference of a circle the size of the known universe, requiring that the circumference be accurate to within the radius of one proton only 39 decimal places of Pi would be necessary.
34) The earliest known reference to Pi is on a Middle Kingdom papyrus scroll, written around 1650 BC by Ahmes the scribe.
35) The old world record for computation of the most digits of pi was achieved in September/October 1995 by Yasumasa Kanada at the University of Tokyo. It took 116 hours for him to compute 6,442,450,000 decimal places of Pi on a computer.
36) A rapidly converging formula for calculation of Pi found by Machin in 1706 was pi/4 = 4 * arctan (1/5) - arctan (1/239).
37) In 1949 it took ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Intergrator and Computer) 70 hours to calculate 2,037 decimal places of Pi.
38) Another name for Pi in Germany is 'die Ludolphsche Zahl' after Ludolph van Ceulen, the German mathematician who devoted his life to calculating 35 decimals of pi.
39) In 1882 Ferdinand Lindemann, proved the transcendence of Pi.
40) By the year 1701 the first 100 digits of pi had been calculated.
41) In 1706 William Jones first gave the Greek letter "π" its current mathematical definition.
42) In 1768 Johann Lambert proved Pi is irrational.
43) Simon Plouffe was listed in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records for reciting 4096 digits of Pi from memory.
44) In 1897 the State House of Representatives of Indiana unanimously passed a bill setting pi equal to 16/(sqrt 3), which approximately equals 9.2376!
45) In ancient Greece the symbol for Pi denoted the number 80.
46) Taking the first 6,000,000,000 decimal places of Pi, this is the distribution:
0 occurs 599,963,005 times,
1 occurs 600,033,260 times,
2 occurs 599,999,169 times,
3 occurs 600,000,243 times,
4 occurs 599,957,439 times,
5 occurs 600,017,176 times,
6 occurs 600,016,588 times,
7 occurs 600,009,044 times,
8 occurs 599,987,038 times,
9 occurs 600,017,038 times.
This shows NO unusual deviation from expected 'random' behaviour.
47) It is easy to prove that if you have a circle that fits exactly inside a square, then
* = 4 x (Area of circle) / (Area of square)
48) Pi does not have to be written in decimal (base 10) notation (3.14159265....). Here it is in binary (base 2) notation: 11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000110000100011010011
You can do lots more stuff with Pi when it is in binary format - like drawing weird pictures of it, or even listening to it. As Pi has an infinite number of places, it is quite possible that any message you liked could be heard somewhere in Pi. It has even been suggested it contains the VOICE OF GOD. In Carl Sagan's book 'Contact' the places of Pi are found to contain a message from the beings that built the universe.
49) Half the circumference of a circle with radius 1 is exactly Pi. The area inside that circle is also exactly Pi !
50) It is impossible to 'square the circle'. i.e: You can't draw a square with the same area as a circle using standard / Euclidean straight-edge and compass construction in a finite number of steps. The Greeks were obsessed with trying to do this.
51) Pi is a 'transcendental' number. This means that it is not the solution to any finite polynomial (eg: lots of numbers added in a series) with whole number coefficients. This is why it is impossible to square the circle.
52) In around 200 BC Archimedes found that Pi was between (223/71) and (22/7). His error was no more than 0.008227 %. He did this by approximating a circle as a 96 sided polygon.
53) The volume of a sphere is 4/3*r3 and its surface area is 4/*r2.
54) The circle is the shape with the least perimeter length to area ratio (for a given shape area). Centuries ago mathematicians were also philosophers. They considered the circle to be the 'perfect' shape because of this. The sphere is the 3D shape with the least surface area to volume ratio (for a given volume)
55) Pi is of course the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. If we bring everything up one dimension to get a '3D value for Pi'... The ratio of a sphere's surface area to the area of the circle seen if you cut the sphere in half is EXACTLY 4
56) The following are all NEARLY Pi: 101/2 Cube root of 31 666/212 10/* (97 + 9/22)1/4 9/5 + (9/5)1/2 (19 (7)1/2) / 16 1.1 x 1.2 x 1.4 x 1.7 (296/167) 2
57) Kochansky found that Pi is NEARLY a root of the equation 9x4 - 240x2 + 1492
58) Ludolph Van Ceulen (1540 - 1610) spent most of his life working out Pi to 35 decimal places. Pi is sometimes known as Ludolph's Constant
59) If you approximate the circle with a radius of 1 as a 100 sided polygon, then its area is only accurate to 1 decimal place or 0.0658%
60) At position 763 there are six nines in a row. This is known as the Feynman Point
61) Pi in base Pi is 10
62) All permutations of 3 arbitrary digits appear somewhere in Pi
63) Starting with the conventional 5-by-5 magic square, and then substituting the nth digit of pi for each number n in the square, we obtain a new array of numbers. The sum of the numbers in every column is duplicated by a sum of numbers in every row.
64) Write the letters of the English alphabet, in capitals, clockwise around a circle, and cross-out the letters that have right-left symmetry, A, H, I, M, etc. The letters that remain group themselves in sets of 3, 1, 4, 1, 6"
65) The sequence 314159 re-appears in the decimal expansion of Pi at place176451. This sequence appears 7 times in the first 10 million places (not including right at the start)
66) If you approximate the circle as a square then the value you get for Pi is about 10% out. It just goes to show that you shouldn't approximate the circle as a square. Well you wouldn't make square wheels would you?
67) 2 Pi in radians form is 360 degrees. Therefore Pi radians is 180 degrees and 1/2 Pi radians is 90 degrees.
68) Pi day is celebrated on March 14 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco (March 14 is 3/14) at 1:59 PST which is 3.14159.
69) All the digits of Pi can never be fully known.
70) Here's a Pi limerick:
Three point one four one five nine two
Its been around forever - its not new
It appears everywhere In here and in there
Its irrational I know but its true !

"The Nutcracker" is the name for the ballet performed around Christmas time
each year. "The Nutcracker Suite" is the title of the music Tchaikovsky
wrote.

"Wassail" comes from the Old Norse "ves heill"--to be of good health. This
evolved into the tradition of visiting neighbors on Christmas Eve and
drinking to their health.

A Christmas club, a savings account in which a person deposits a fixed
amount of money regularly to be used at Christmas for shopping, came about
around 1905.

In 1996, Christmas caroling was banned at two major malls in Pensacola,
Florida. Apparently, shoppers and merchants complained the carolers were
too loud and took up too much space.

In an effort to solicit cash to pay for a charity Christmas dinner in 1891,
a large crabpot was set down on a San Francisco street, becoming the first
Salvation Army collection kettle.

In America, the weeks leading up to Christmas are the biggest shopping
weeks of the year. Many retailers make up to 70% of their annual revenue in
the month preceding Christmas.

4.The first rooftop celebration atop One Times Square, complete with a
fireworks display, took place in 1904. The New York Times produced this
event to inaugurate its new headquarters in Times Square and celebrate the
renaming of Longacre Square to Times Square. The first Ball Lowering
celebration atop One Times Square was held on December 31, 1907 and is now
a worldwide symbol of the turn of the New Year, seen via satellite by more
than one billion people each year. The original New Year's Eve Ball weighed
700 pounds and was 5 feet in diameter. It was made of iron and wood and was
decorated with 100 25-watt light bulbs.

"Auld Lang Syne" is sung at the stroke of midnight in almost every English-speaking country in the world to bring in the new year. At least partially written by Robert Burns in the 1700's, it was first published in 1796 after Burns' death. Early variations of the song were sung prior to 1700 and inspired Burns to produce the modern rendition. An old Scotch tune, "Auld Lang Syne" literally means "old long ago," or simply, "the good old days." Here are the lyrics:


Auld Lang Syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne?
For auld Lang syne, my dear, for auld Lang syne,
We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld Lang syne.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld Lang syne?
And here's a hand, my trusty friend and gie's a hand o' thine
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet for auld Lang syne

If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer?

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For hundreds of years people have been awed by the bright lights and big noise of fireworks. The ancient Chinese used fireworks at festivities and to frighten enemies in battle. Captain John Smith set them off in Jamestown in 1608, enjoying a bit of English popular entertainment and impressing Native Americans.Legend has it that the Chinese made the first fireworks in the 800s, filling bamboo shoots with gunpowder and exploding them at the New Year with the hope that the sound would scare away evil spirits. According to tradition, Marco Polo brought this technology back to Europe.It's fair to say, however, that the origins of fireworks are shrouded in smoke; the China story is widespread, and possibly true, but fireworks may in fact have developed in India or the Arab world. Fireworks became known in Europe during the 1300s, probably after returning Crusaders brought them from the East.By the 1400s Florence, Italy, was the center of fireworks manufacturing. At this time fireworks were just one effect in a celebration rather than its focus. At religious festivals Italians made plaster figures that spewed fireworks from their eyes and mouths. The 1533 coronation parade for Anne Boleyn included a papier-mache dragon that belched fire. During the 1700s displays became more elaborate and were popular with European royalty. French king Louis XV ordered extravagant displays of fireworks at Versailles, and Russian czar Peter the Great put on a five-hour show after the birth of his son. Meanwhile, in the American colonies settlers used fireworks to mark happy occasions. Early fireworks were enjoyed more for the sound than the show—in its simplest forms gunpowder explodes quickly, leaving a terrific bang but not much to see other than a rather brief golden glow. Over time people discovered that using chemical compounds with greater amounts of oxygen made the explosives burn brighter and longer. The multi-hued displays we know now began in the 1830s, when Italians added trace amounts of metals that burn at high temperatures, creating beautiful colors. Other additives also produced interesting effects. For example, calcium deepens colors, titanium makes sparks, and zinc creates smoke clouds.

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As the economy continues to suffer a growing number of people are opting to
publicly pray about their every day tribulations. In Rockville, Md., local resident Rocky Twyman, 59, had heard enough from both fellow peers and the Holy Spirit.After hearing complaints about the rising gas prices from fellow volunteersat a local soup kitchen, Twyman, a long time activist, said he needed to do something.Twyman hit the streets and began campaigning for what now is nationally called the "Pray Down The High Gas Prices Movement." Beginning in the Maryland area, he and local and spiritual supporters went to gas stations with permission from the owners, gathered around the pumps cipher-style, and sang, prayed and also recruited paying customers. Once the media caught wind of Twyman's effort to introduce religion as a solution to the suffering economy versus bureaucratic dialogue, the prayergatherings grew both nationally and internationally.

A mallard duck mounted an epic rescue mission to recover her six chicks when they were washed down a storm drain.The ducklings seemed doomed when they were swept away from their mother down a drain cover in Newcastle, reports the Daily Mail.However, their determined parent refused to accept their loss, and followed their cheeps for over a mile, across roads, roundabouts, rail lines, two school fields and the grounds of a hospital.Eventually they came to a halt, and the unnamed mother duck stood guard by the manhole cover above them - for four hours.Jogger Peter Elliott, 59, had noticed the quacking mother as he set out, but was confused to find her still patrolling the same area upon his return.His two-year-old grandson James heard the stranded ducklings when he came out with his mother Vicki, 30, to investigate.Mr Elliott, his son-in-law Rob Jefferson, 30, and neighbour, Jim Calder, 62, armed themselves with a crowbar and other tools and set about rescuing the ducklings.

"We managed to haul this heavy manhole cover up and saw six little ducklings scrabbling around in the drain," said Mr Elliott. "We got a little fishing net from the house and lifted each duckling out in turn.