What Goes on In America
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Who Killed Mens’ Hats? Think Of A Three Letter Word Beginning With “I”
A hundred years ago — and that’s when this picture was taken, in 1912 — men didn’t leave home without a hat. Boys wore caps. This is a socialist political rally in Union Square in Manhattan. There may be a bare head or two in this crowd, but I think those heads are women.
So what happened? Why did guys stop wearing headgear in mid-century America?
The turning point, most people say, was John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. Before Kennedy, all presidents wore top hats on their first day at work. Kennedy brought one, but hardly ever put it on. Fashionistas say Kennedy, one of our most charismatic presidents, made hats un-happen. And, chronologically speaking, after JFK, guys everywhere, even balding ones like astronaut John Glenn, went topless. -Robert Krulwich
(Photo credit: The Library of Congress/via flickr)
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4,000,000 Digits of Pi, Visualized
In 2011, pi was computed out to 10,000,000,000,000 decimal places. Here are 4,000,000 of them, translated into colored pixels corresponding to digits 0-9 (this is only part of it, explore the full image here).
It only takes 39 digits of pi to draw a circle the size of the universe down to the accuracy of a hydrogen atom, so we’ve got about 9,999,999,999,961 extra to figure out what to do with. This visualization only covers 4e-5% of all known digits of pi.
At a normal reading pace, it would take you 158,000 years to recite all known digits of pi. Better start practicing!
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