Yesterday was sidewalk chalk day on campus. Following a tradition which started sometime in the distant past, students can pause between classes and do some chalk art on the many sidewalks crossing the Quad. A slightly newer tradition, started two years ago, is to write an irrational number to an insane number of digits.

The first year, the guy who started it all wrote out Pi. He began in the Quad, went around the lake behind the Chapel, and finally went off the dock (if you’re not familiar with campus, that’s a LOT of numbers!). Last year, he did e. This year he wrote out Phi to 10,811 digits. I joined in the fun and wrote out root 2 to 2,226 digits.