Re-Post: A Piece of Tattoosday Pi

The following post appeared in October 2009, and I've been meaning to re-post it, but I always forget. This year, on 3/14, I remembered while it was still "Pi Day":

I was on the 34th Street subway platform, waiting for a downtown N express train, when I met Joe who had a series of numbers inked around his arm:


I asked him if the digits represented his social security number (don't laugh, I've heard it has been done) and he shook his head and rolled up his sleeve to reveal the top of the tattoo:


This, of course, is the value of π (pi), which mathematicians have determined, possesses an infinite number of decimal places.

As a physics enthusiast, he loves what pi represents. He told me, as the "meaning of symbols change a lot, what better [to have tattooed] than a transcendental constant?"

Despite π's infinite number of decimals, he only has the tattoo calculated out to 27 places because, he said, it was "all I could afford" at the time.



Later, Joe e-mailed me and gave me more specifics. The tattoo was done at Utopia in Huntington, New York (out on Long Island). I can't find a current listing foe the shop, so it may no longer be in business. And, Joe said, "the font is Times New Roman, the π symbol is 180pt font (π in degrees) and the numbers are 90pt font (π/2 in degrees)".
This careful selection of font size only emphasizes Joe's commitment to the purity of this πtattoo.

Thanks much to Joe for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Manhattan

At one of the busiest intersections in Manhattan (34th and 7th), I recently met Kelsey, who offered up this still-fresh tattoo:


This is a scene from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, when Alice meets the Cheshire Cat for the second time.

The tattoo is based on this illustration:


This is her most recently tattooed piece. The inspiration behind it is that this was one of her favorite stories, ever since she was six years old.

This was done by Mark Roberts at Fine Line Tattoo Parlour in Deep River, Connecticut.

As a postscript, I noticed in the original photo I took, down on her ankle, was another tattoo, an apparent equation:


I e-mailed Kelsey asking her what the significance of "<3.14". I initially thought that it had something to do with being less than the value of Pi. (π).

Her response surprised me with its cleverness:

"Well, it's <3.14 because <3 is a heart and 3.14 is Pi, an irrational number ... I got it at a tattoo parlor in Augusta, Maine. Four of my friends also have that tattooed in the same spot."

Thanks to Kelsey for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!