By Steve Rubenstein September 18, 2017 Updated: September 19, 2017 3:31pm
Larry Shaw, who created Pi Day in 1988, led a parade at the Exploratorium every March 14. Photo: Courtesy Of The Family, Handout Photo
Three-point-one-four was more than a number to museum curator Larry Shaw, who created the offbeat, lighthearted and pizza-infused mathematical holiday known as Pi Day.
It was Mr. Shaw, a man who loved numbers even more than he loved a slice of pizza, who transformed the endless number into an endless celebration of mathematics, joy and pepperoni.
Mr. Shaw, who died Aug. 19 at age 78 in a Petaluma assisted-living residence from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, was the technical curator at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco. In 1988, during a staff retreat, he came up with the idea to link the digits of pi, which begins 3.14, with the date March 14.
At first the event was celebrated only by Exploratorium staff. But great ideas have a way of catching on and, before long, Pi Day was a fixture and a public celebration at the museum, and then by math lovers everywhere. It didn’t hurt the cause, he often said, that March 14 also turned out to be the birthday of Albert Einstein.
For 38 years, Mr. Shaw would don a red cap emblazoned with the magic digits and lead a parade of museumgoers, each of them holding a sign bearing one of the digits of pi. Off they would march, in strict order, with 3 in front, and the holder of the decimal point sign next, and then 14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 582 ...
The number of sign carriers was exhausted long before the number of digits of pi, that being the nature of infinitely long numbers.
Pi — the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter — may be an irrational number, but Mr. Shaw’s celebration of it was the height of rationality, civility and order. If one of the sign holders lost his place in line, he was quickly steered into the right spot by the rest of the participants, who took their duties seriously.
“He was honored that it became such a holiday,” said his wife of 54 years, Catherine, “and it was a greater honor when the Exploratorium decided not to charge admission on Pi Day.”
Because all that marching could work up an appetite, Pi Day would also feature lots of the other kind of pie. Mr. Shaw loved all varieties of pie equally, said his wife.
“He didn’t have a favorite,” she said. “He ate everything.”
Mr. Shaw was a native of Washington, D.C., who moved to the Bay Area with his family as a toddler. He was a graduate of Pleasant Hill High School and received a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1961 from Reed College in Portland, Ore.
After working in physics-related jobs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at UC Berkeley — and then taking time off to tour Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on a motorcycle and hike through the Sierra — Mr. Shaw joined the Exploratorium staff in 1972.
He specialized in helping the museum’s artists-in-residence turn their often-wild ideas into actual Exploratorium exhibits, and he also helped design a lighthearted series of hexagons that visitors would step, bounce and dance upon to create abstract music.
The best part of Pi Day, Mr. Shaw believed, was its ability to make math seem accessible and fun to those average folks who may have suffered through it during their school days.
“He loved to help people realize they are capable, and that they can get involved in areas of human thought that they thought were closed to them,” said his wife. “That’s what the Exploratorium stands for, too.”
Mr. Shaw is survived by his wife, of Mill Valley; and by two daughters, Tara Shaw of Berkeley and Sara Shaw of Spokane, Wash.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Buddhist Temple of Marin at 390 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Pie will be served.
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email:
srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF
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