Pi Day. March 14. 3/14. The day the world acknowledges the mathematical constant that describes the relationship between a circle’s circumference and its diameter — infinite, irrational, non-repeating, and somehow present in nearly every corner of physics, engineering, and natural science that has ever been examined carefully.
Also: Brent crude oil settled at $103.14 per barrel on Friday.
$103.14. On the day before Pi Day. Yolanda Tippington, Science Correspondent, has been staring at this number since the market closed and would like to formally note that the universe appears to be paying attention, has a sense of timing, and is either sending a message or generating the most cosmically perfect coincidence in the history of energy markets, and Yolanda is professionally obligated to say it is the coincidence but she is personally not ruling out the message.
The price of oil hit this figure because the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of the global oil supply passes — has been effectively closed by the ongoing U.S.-Israel war with Iran, now in its 14th day. Overnight Friday into Saturday, the U.S. military bombed Kharg Island, which handles approximately 90% of Iran’s crude exports, obliterating, per a presidential social media post, “every MILITARY target” on the island. The president added, in the same post, that he chose NOT to destroy the oil infrastructure, in a capitalized NOT that Yolanda reads as doing significant structural weight-bearing in the sentence.
The oil infrastructure was not destroyed. The oil is still there. The price is $103.14. The circumference divided by the diameter is 3.14159. The market found the joke. The market is not laughing. The market is charging you $3.63 at the pump, which is a 22-month high, which the president previously called a little glitch.
The glitch is currently priced at pi times 10 to the second power, plus some change. Yolanda has done this math. Yolanda presents it without further comment and with significant eye contact.
Pi, For Those Who Need A Refresher On What We Are Celebrating
Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It is approximately 3.14159265358979323846… and continues infinitely without repeating. It is irrational, meaning it cannot be expressed as a simple fraction. It is transcendental, meaning it is not the root of any polynomial equation with rational coefficients, which is a property that sounds like it was invented to describe the war’s objectives but was in fact identified by mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann in 1882, before the war, and therefore cannot be blamed on Operation Epic Fury.
Pi appears in: the area of a circle (πr²), the circumference of a circle (2πr), wave equations, probability theory, Fourier transforms, quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the formula for a normal distribution, which is the bell curve, which describes how most things cluster around an average with outcomes thinning toward the extremes — a distribution that this particular week’s news is testing from several directions simultaneously.
Pi also appears, as of Friday’s close, in the price of Brent crude oil. This is the first time Yolanda is aware of that pi has appeared in an energy market instrument on the day before Pi Day. She searched the historical record. She found nothing comparable. She is choosing to treat this as significant even though she is a scientist and scientists are supposed to resist treating coincidences as significant. She is a scientist on Pi Day. The standards are adjusted.
What The $103.14 Figure Means For The Average American
The average American does not purchase Brent crude directly. The average American purchases gasoline at a pump, where the price is now $3.63 per gallon on average — a figure that is, Yolanda notes, not pi, but is the product of a chain of events that flows directly from the disruption of the waterway that carries the crude that sets the price that flows through the refinery that reaches the pump that the average American stands at while doing the mental math that is not as elegant as pi and arrives at a number that is also not welcome.
The average American is also, as of this weekend, heating their home with natural gas, which is also priced relative to global energy markets, which are also affected by the Strait of Hormuz situation, which the president described last week as a little glitch and this week upgraded by bombing Kharg Island at night and posting about it. The upgrade has not resolved the glitch. The glitch, like pi, continues beyond where anyone expected it to end.
The Circularity Of The Current Situation, Noted On Pi Day For Mathematical Resonance
Pi governs circles. Circles are the shape of things that go around. Yolanda would like to note, on Pi Day, the circular geometry of the current energy situation:
The U.S. struck Iran to remove the nuclear threat. Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz. Oil prices rose. The U.S. threatened Iran with more strikes if it didn’t open the strait. Iran warned it would destroy regional oil infrastructure if its own was attacked. The U.S. bombed Kharg Island and threatened to bomb the oil infrastructure if Iran interfered with shipping. Iran threatened to bomb regional oil facilities. The circle continues. The diameter is the Strait of Hormuz. The circumference is everything downstream of it. The ratio between them is, as of Friday’s close, $103.14.
Pi is irrational. The circle has no end. The price keeps going. Yolanda has drawn the diagram. The diagram is a circle. The circle is labeled $103.14. Happy Pi Day.
Yolanda Tippington, Science Correspondent, filed this piece at 3:14 a.m. because the occasion demanded it and because she was awake anyway checking oil prices. Confidence level: 31.4%, which is the most seasonally appropriate confidence level available. Fake sources: 3. The $103.14 Brent crude price is real and documented from Friday’s close. The circumference-to-diameter ratio remains 3.14159. These two facts coexisting on Pi Day weekend is either a coincidence or a sign, and on Pi Day, Yolanda is allowing herself the sign. Gerald the houseplant was shown the chart. Gerald was unmoved. Gerald is, as ever, irrational in the mathematical sense, in that he cannot be fully expressed as a fraction.