Math Alumni Celebrate Pi Day

Spring 2025

A Global Celebration

Kristine McGlynn

On March 14, 2025, Math alumni around the world joined in the celebration of Pi Day! As part of the festivities, we handed out 70 pies across seven regions: 蓝莓视频, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Hong Kong.

Alumni in other locations were invited to share their favourite math memory鈥攁nd in return, they received a special gift from us!

Here are those memories:

2020's

Yogesh Agarwal, BCS 2021 -听I鈥檓 in business school in Spain now, and there are hardly any UW grads around. A few weeks ago, I was studying for an exam and pulled out my old calculator. The person sitting across from me saw the Pink Tie on it and recognized it immediately! Turns out she graduated from 蓝莓视频 about ten years ago. Small world, right?

Emily Goodwin, BMath 2021 -听My favourite math memory was getting my pink tie and then getting to wear it 5 years later for my graduation. I really thought I would have lost it in that time! It was so special to have with me to remind me of where I started and how far I had come.

Queenie Chen, BCS 2022 -听My favourite Math memory was being an orientation leader during 3rd year! I met lots of cool people and it was fun to see how stuff was done behind the scenes (including the math dance choreography). Plus, I actually put my pink tie to good use :)

Abbey Jayne Fox, BAFM 2023 -听My favourite math memory was math orientation and karaoke in MC!

Ely Golden, BMath 2023 -听Probably one of my favourite math memories was when I was trying to find the values of the entries in (this integer sequence) and I could not find the value for the number 37 and was not sure even at all to prove how it but lo and behold on Christmas day my computer found a value for the number 37! To this day however I'm not sure if a value always exists though.

Aditya Jain, PhD 2023 -听My favorite math memory is spending time working and eating at C&D cafe. The food, coffee and snacks were not just cheap but also good quality.

Samantha Kaiser, BMath 2024 -听My favourite math memories are the pi-days. I remember making a point to enjoy my final pie in my last term, an hour before my exam. Worth it!

Vaanie Kathirkamar, BCS 2024 - Dan Wolczuk: WHAT'S THE DEFINITION OF A BASIS?????????? Tired Math 136 8:30 class: AN INDEPENDENT SPANNING SET!!!!!!!!!!

2010's

Michael Jacobs, MMT 2014 - One of my favourite math memories is watching Donald in Mathmagic Land when I was nine years old. Up to then, math was something I did well in but was not necessarily something that I enjoyed. From the moment Donald appeared and noticed the funny-shaped trees ('Well, what d'ya know.. square roots'), I was spellbound. Donald and his friends showed us the connections between math and music, how the pentagram relates to the golden ratio and how this appears in nature, the math behind playing pool shots, conic sections, as well as looking into infinity. This short film opened my mathematical eyes and from that point, I began to enjoy math.

When I began to teach math myself, I got a copy of this and showed it to my students and I was happy to see them enjoy it too. When my own kids were old enough, I showed it to them too and they enjoyed it. Sure, it is a bit dated now but it still brings happy memories.

Happy 蟺 day!

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Tianqi Liu, BMath 2018 -听MATH135 136 137 138鈥� in MC/M3 classrooms are still in my deep memory - Mean Value Theorem, Central Limit Theorem, Fundamental Theorem of Calculus are all from my first year courses at U蓝莓视频 Math. Now I鈥檓 nowhere close to remember any of those, but the problem solving skills and analytical mindset acquired from these courses truly made some long lasting impacts everywhere in my career.听

2000's

Fei Chiang, MMath 2003 - I graduated from Computer Science in 2003 with a MMath.

I remember walking to class Sept 11, 2001 morning in the MC building, and people in panic of the world coming to an end. It was a surreal day where all of us on campus were glued to TVs, and the shared experience of this event unfolding before us.

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Winnie Liu, PDACT 2003 - The Math Contest

I still remember the winter morning in 2002 when I took a high school math contest at the age of 29. It was an unconventional move, but I had my reasons. With a computer science degree already under my belt, I wanted to pursue a new career in actuarial science at the University of 蓝莓视频.

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As I sat among high school students, I felt a mix of curiosity and determination. I was driven by a desire to start anew in Canada and build a rewarding career.

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Twenty years have passed since that contest. Today, I'm a successful actuary, grateful for the path I chose. Taking that math contest was a pivotal moment, marking the beginning of a new chapter in my life. It reminded me that sometimes, taking an unconventional path can lead to extraordinary outcomes. It all started with a math contest!

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Raees Hussain-Aamir, BMath 2004 -听My favourite memory of Math is the time spent in the math comfy lounge on the 3rd floor, doing assignments听late night.

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Marie Cannon, BMath 2005 -听This year marks 20 years since my graduation from UW Math! To commemorate, my math memory has to be breaking my ankle two days prior to convocation and having to hobble across the stage in the PAC on crutches and with a bright purple cast under my gown :)听

Diana Chiu, BA 2007 -听I remember my first days on campus seeing the famous gigantic pink tie hung proudly over the Math building as I entered UW as a frosh student. It is a memory I will never forget.听

Wallace Hui, BMath 2008 -听My favourite UW Math memory is, of course, the Pi Day events.

1990's

Michael Abramczuk, BMath 1992 -听One of my favourite memories is the cardboard boxes out front of the TAs' offices where we would turn in our assignments before midnight deadline. I'm so surprised no engineering pranksters relocated those boxes to the 5th floor dean's office!

Isabelle Hemmings, BMath 1996 - I think my favourite math memory was this enormous AHA moment, when in the middle of Ordinary Differential Equations, I finally grasped the usefulness of the linear algebra that we learned in first year. It unlocked a lot more for me, but that moment was both enlightening and empowering, allowing me to see the path forward to other parts of applied mathematics.

Second math memory: all the card games played in the Comfy Lounge

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Amber Arid-Williams, BMath 1998 -听Frosh week sitting on a couch outside the math building with other mathies - defending the tie with water guns and a guitar for entertainment.

1980's

Gary Cohn, BMath 1980 - I graduated with a B. Math in 1980. My favourite math memory is from a first year Linear Algebra class taught by the late, great Prof. Alan Adamson (if memory serves, he didn't like being called Dr. Adamson).

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Sadly, I can't remember exactly what he was demonstrating to the class, except that it involved multiplying matrices together to show, in this particular example, that AB=BA.

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After he had completed the proof on the chalkboard at the front of the lecture hall, he turned around, smiling proudly, to show us all that he was wearing an ABBA t-shirt. The class was delighted!

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One of the greatest professors of all time in my book.

Come to think of it, why isn't the ABBA classic song used as the "official anthem" of UW?

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蓝莓视频

I was defeated, you won the war

蓝莓视频

Promise to love you forevermore

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蓝莓视频

Couldn't escape if I wanted to

蓝莓视频

Knowing my fate is to be with you

Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-蓝莓视频

Finally facing my 蓝莓视频

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Ken BelFall, BMath 1981 -

(Memory 1) I remember a large 1980 C&O take home assignment that included a question to prove an mathematician's obscure theorem. We were all stumped!

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After wracking my brain that continually came up empty, I figured the person's theorem had to be documented somewhere. So one night I went over to the Dana Porter Library to research the theorem. Only one obscure book included the mathematician's theorem. Unfortunately I didn't completely understand it. Without down right plagiarism, I tried to simulate the proof in my paper.

Before the assignment was due, a lot of my classmates asked me how I answered the question. I showed them my lame attempt to prove the theorem, for fear they might think I was holding back on them.

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When the Professor handed back the assignment, he said how disappointed we was in the class. He said nobody got the question correct and only one student got part marks.

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(Memory 2) During the late 70's, I remember late nights in front of a terminal of the Honeywell mainframe computer.

I played a Star Trek simulation game where you had like 40 moves (years) traveling between 8x8 grid sectors within different 8x8 grid galaxies, to rid the existence of Klingons. (Visualize you are a Queen on 64 connected chess boards). You had to calculate the angles and distances to where you wanted to go, while being mindful of how much energy you had (there were space stations you could travel to so that you could reenergize). Once in a sector you could fire photon torpedoes, or wide range energy depleting phaser blasts to destroy klingons before they returned fire.

Early on during one mission, I traveled through a surprise space storm and I lost a lot of energy deflecting the disturbance. My starship entered a sector with 2 klingon warships. I only had enough power to launch a torpedo, so even if I destroyed the ship, the other vessel would have destroyed me because I had insufficient energy to fuel my shields. To make matters worse, the targeted Klingon was behind a star.

While taking a desperate torpedo shot, I tried to calculate the trajectory angle so as to use the gravity of the star to slingshot the torpedo and destroy the enemy.

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Turns out I hit the star and destroyed billions of innocent lives, but not before both Klingon ships were vaporized. For punishment, the game sentenced me to 5 years (moves) on Devil's Asteroid, before placing me back in the game.

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I won the Honeywell computer game and was promoted to Admiral. It would have made a great script for a motion picture, but I stuck with my BMath '81 accounting option career.

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Gisele Andrews, BMath 1982 -听In 1981 while studying for my B. Math, I was hired as a part-time worker for professor Arnie Dyck. He was teaching a programming course for beginners via service mail, using keypunch cards. Folks from all over the country would pencil mark their cards for each assignment,听 bundle them up in the correct order using elastic bands and mail them to U. Of 蓝莓视频 to be processed, via service mail. I was in charge of running their cards through the reader, in the exact order they had been bunbled. This created a printout of their program including results. From there, errors were circled within the printed copy and returned to the student by service mail. Needless to say, too often, the keypunch cards arrived with broken elastics due to service mail handling and the student had to start the whole process over. We should be thankful for what we have today.

1970's

Bill Foster, BMath 1972 -After 50 years of not visiting the UofW campus, I was amazed at how the campus had grown and expanded. However, it did take me some time to find the original Math building. I had brought my grand nephew to entice him to follow his great uncle鈥檚 footsteps but, although he didn鈥檛, there鈥檚 now a good chance his brother will. Happy PI Day 鈥�.. Bill

Judy Walsh, BMath 1972 -听My favourite math memory was being in Professor Fryer's first year calculus class when he announced to us that UW was planning a new cooperative program in teaching mathematics with work terms in high schools. I applied, the program was approved and I became a member of that inaugural class. It prepared me well for a 30+ year rewarding career teaching math in secondary schools. Thanks UW!!!!!

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Joe Carpenter, BMath 1975 -During the Graduation Ceremony our picture was taken. My Father & Mother and my wife. The picture was put in the next U of W student guide. That was very Special.

We also attended two U of W Alumni Meetings in Melbourne Australia.

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Don Hall, BMath 1978 - I have two special memories (among many others)

1) My first week in Prof. Graham's class in first year. He decided to take a class and bring us up to speed with Grade 13 Math.

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2) I really enjoyed working, volunteering, on MathNews!

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Andi Tepper-Klorman, BMath 1978 - It's been decades, but some of the memories I have from my time at UW

include:
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- all-nighters in the Math building, and dodging the guards that tried to not let me sleep on the couches

- the Red Room with the 360/75

- using WYLBUR and WRATS

- trudging across the muddy field from the Philip St. co-op to campus (this was a while ago!)

- exploring the underground maintenance tunnels when I could find an open door

- hanging out in the Grad House

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1960's

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