A day (3/14) to remember that pi is behind the browser, AI and medicine

The date (3/14 according to the way the days are expressed in the United States) is not coincidental and international organizations and research centers celebrate this Thursday the Pi Day and that nothing in science is understood without this irrational number that hides the keys to navigation, algorithms or artificial intelligence.

The “3.141592…. ” (the sequence is infinite) has been for centuries the most fascinating and studied of the numbers; first for revealing the relationship between the perimeter and the diameter of a circle – crucial in calculus -, but then in all areas of knowledge: in physics, in engineering, in many medical advances, in quantum computing or to understand the rules that govern the Universe.

Mathematician David Ríos, professor of risk analysis and data science at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ICMAT) of the Spanish Higher Council for Scientific Research, observed that pi is also behind the algorithm that advises the next purchase, which suggests a song or a book, on economic predictions and automatic machine learning.

In statements to EFE, David Ríos insisted that this mathematical constant appears in practically all scientific disciplines due to the properties and solutions that it provides to each of them, and however he considered that many of these properties are still unknown and that many of the Solutions to some challenges facing humanity (economic, medical or security) are behind mathematics.

Pi: transcendent, irrational and infinite

Although Pi Day has been celebrated unofficially for several decades, in the United States it became official in 2009 with the approval of a resolution in the House of Representatives, and UNESCO incorporated it into its calendar, also officially, ago. five years, although with the more generic title of “International Mathematics Day”.

UNESCO wants to emphasize that the success of internet search engines depends on mathematical algorithms, that secure communications are based on the theory of numbers, or that some medical devices (resonance or scanner) are based on data collection. numerical figures that an algorithm transforms into images.

The decoding of the human genome was a scientific milestone supported by statistics, computer science and mathematics, which are transforming computer vision, automatic translation or autonomous vehicles and are used to understand how epidemics spread, to design systems and legislation. electoral or to better understand natural risks and prevent disasters.

With the focus on the relevance of mathematics, Pi Day is celebrated every 3/14 (14th of the 3rd). The mathematician David Ríos explained that it is a number “transcendent“, “irrational” and “infinite” and that this is how it will always be, although each year progress is made in the knowledge of the number of decimals that accompany 3 and which are already situated, although the sources differ greatly, at more than 60 billion.

The algorithm is unbiased

David Ríos highlighted the presence of mathematics in general, and pi in particular, in practically all disciplines of science and technology, and specifically referred to machine learning and artificial intelligence, to emphasize that One of the ways that algorithms “learn” is based precisely on the normal distribution.

These algorithms – a computer expression based on mathematical methods – are capable of making recommendations in Internet searches – even anticipating what a person is searching for -, medical predictions or suggestions for songs or readings based on deductions.logical” which are arrived at in a mathematical way after collecting a lot of numerical data (previous purchases, similar tastes of people with a similar profile, etc.).

The researcher assured that the algorithms “they have no bias“, but the data with which they are trained and with which they learn, and in that sense he has defended the importance of promoting “equity, justice and absence of bias” in those training sessions.

And looking to the future, he did not hesitate to point out that the main challenge facing mathematical science, at a theoretical level, is the resolution of the “Millennium Problems” that have not yet found a solution and from which many will be discovered. new concepts; and at the applied level, the “maximum likelihood” paradigm would allow much more accurate predictions and probabilistic calculations to be made, which will be “extremely useful” – he noted – in areas such as economics, medicine or security.

On the occasion of Pi Day, the State Research Agency has released information: since 2018, it has funded 538 research projects in mathematical sciences with more than 30 million euros aimed, among other objectives, at developing prevention systems. of natural disasters, biomarkers that allow obtaining a virtual biopsy to diagnose cases of breast cancer or prediction algorithms that avoid discrimination due to data bias.