As today is 3/14, it’s come to be recognized as International Pi Day. It also happens to be Albert Einstein’s 145th birthday. Both of these facts appeal to me because years ago, I obtained a degree in astrophysics from a small school in the desert Southwest called the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Among other things, the school was notable for being near one of the world’s largest radio telescopes, the Very Large Array, which was featured in the movie and the novel Contact. It was also located near Trinity, the site of the world’s first atomic blast, featured in the movie Oppenheimer. In fact, J. Robert Oppenheimer himself occasionally came to campus events such as the 49er’s celebration held in the fall—celebrated because of the “mining” part of the college’s title. The school’s other big celebration happened in the spring and that was St. Patrick’s Day. St. Patrick is the patron saint of many different people, but among those people are engineers.

Perhaps it’s because of St. Patrick’s Day happens so soon after March 14, that it took a story of cosmic horror (and no little humor) that I first read in 2008 to make me aware of Pi Day.

The story was “Pi in the Sky” written by John L. French and C.J. Henderson, which I published in my magazine Tales of the Talisman. The story is set at the fictional Pelgimbly Institute. The school was surrounded by a Moebius fence. If you attempted to climb it, you would always end up on the side you started. Students who came to this school would watch videos cautioning them against the dangers of traveling in the multiverse, where they might lose or gain limbs. In short, it reminded me of my alma mater.

In the story, a police officer comes to campus with a novel idea. Perhaps the scientists of the institute could figure out a way to determine the fingerprints a person would leave from DNA evidence and vice versa. One of the grad students is assigned the problem and a few months later determines that it can indeed be done. However, the day of the demonstration happens to be none other than pi day. When pi day occurs, wily student pranksters make sure every number entered into any computer on campus is rendered into the one defined by the ratio of a circle’s circumference divided by its diameter. This sets the computer on a quest to find out what infinite being has fingerprints and DNA represented by pi. You’ll have to read the story to find out what happens. You can find “Pi in the Sky” in volume 4, issue 1 of Tales of the Talisman Magazine, which is available at: https://talesofthetalisman.com/issue4-1.html

At the outset of this piece, I mentioned the movie based on Carl Sagan’s novel Contact. In fact, it was Carl Sagan’s non-fiction series and book, Cosmos, that made me aware of the Very Large Array Radio Telescope, which in turn made me aware of New Mexico Tech. Another thing Carl Sagan’s Cosmos taught me about, was the concept of dimensions perpendicular to the three we can sense—left-right, forward-back, and up-down. In the episode where Sagan introduces higher dimensions, he also introduced the novella Flatland by nineteenth century mathematician Edwin Abbott. The book imagines a world of two dimensions and how creatures in that world would perceive objects from our three-dimensional world. Ever since then, I’ve loved the idea of trying to visualize what the fourth dimension would be like. I got to put the idea into practice when I took general relativity during my second year of graduate school. In Einstein’s theory, he actually uses a fourth dimension in his physical calculations.

Recently, I wrote a story that imagines a mathematician who has actually found a way to visualize a fourth, physical dimension using an electronic headset. Just as we might be scary creatures to the two-dimensional beings of Edwin Abbott’s Flatland, he discovers something alive and lurking just out of range of our senses. Or is it out of range?

I’m excited to announce that today is the day you can find out the answer to the question. The story appears alongside a dozen other great stories in Arithmophobia, an anthology of mathematical horror edited by Robert Lewis. You can learn more about the anthology and order either a digital or physical copy right here: https://polymathpress.com/products/arithmophobia-an-anthology-of-mathematical-horror-edited-by-robert-lewis

May the horrors you face this Pi Day occur only on the page!