“You wanna pie me now?” 21-year old Phi Sigma Sigma member Kaitlin Martinez asked one of her friends.

Along the lawn near Malcolm X Plaza, the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority was celebrating Pi Day its own way, namely with a game of pie-throwing that was aptly christened “Pie a Phi.”

Pi Day, celebrated for the first time by physicist Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium in 1988, is an international holiday during which math aficionados and others around the world celebrate pi--Greek letter “π” and symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated every March 14th due to pi being roughly equal to 3.14.

A Phi sister was standing behind a wooden plate with only one hole, just big enough to allow her to stick out her head, wearing a ski mask, as a volunteer threw a pie at her to celebrate Pi Day.

A small crowd gathered around the stand, clapping, cheering and laughing whenever a Phi was hit in the face with one of the whipped cream pies. “It would be a lot more hefty if it was a real pie!” Martinez said with a laugh.

But more than just a game, for the sorority it is a good way to have fun while serving a good cause. All the proceeds for the sales of the pies ($2 each) will go to the National Kidney Foundation.

On the other side of campus, in the elevator lobby on the ninth floor of Thornton Hall, the Mathematistas, a group of women pursuing master’s degrees in mathematics at SF State, were also celebrating Pi Day. But this time without pie-throwing and the pies are the real deal, too: apple, cherry and a cheesecake.

Founded in the fall of 2007 by 29-year-old Amanda Ruiz, who is herself working on a master’s in math, the Mathematistas decided at the last minute to organize this get-together.

The occasion is a chance for them to not only celebrate Pi Day, a “big nerd day” according to 24-year-old Mathematista Jupei Hsiao, but also to sell their t-shirts and display their work in the form of three big posters, all of which were shown at the sectional meeting of the Mathematics Association of America.

All proceeds for the sales of t-shirts will go into bringing speakers to the mathematics department to give students tips that will help them in their future careers.

For the Mathematistas and students that stoped by, grabbing a slice of pie on their way back from or to a class, Pi Day was mostly a good reason to hang out, have fun, discuss mathematics and take a well deserved break from classes.

Mathematista Jennifer Lopez, 22, author of one of the posters that is on display on one of the lobby walls, was pleased to see students interested in Pi Day.

Especially since the Mathematistas also have, on the table next to their pies, a “Got a Stupid Math Question?” box, where students can anonymously drop a question. The Mathematistas will then answer these queries during one of their seminars, the next taking place after Spring Break. One of the goals of the association is to share resources and help each other through the mathematics program.

Plate in hand, eating a slice of pie, was 20-year-old physics major Russell Lego, who came to enjoy pie and celebrate pi.

“I love both” he said with a smile. “We can take time out from our busy life, get together and celebrate something that we all use,” he explained.

Mathematistas treasurer Kristen Freeman, 23, was glad to see that a lot of schools are slowly getting into celebrating Pi Day. To her, math is a pretty dry subject, so Pi Day was a good way to help get kids interested in it, she said.

Managing to grab one of the last slices of pie, 39-year-old math major Arash Farahmand was on hand to celebrate mathematics as well. The sweatshirt that he wore sums up the whole event pretty well: “Mathematics is as easy as Pi,” it read. Judging by the unanimously contented smiles, math seems as good as pie, too.

For more info about Pi Day visit Pi Day’s official Web site.