Pi Day is a big deal at MIT. Not only does it go hand-in-hand with the “nerd culture” that MIT is known for, but it’s also tradition to announce Regular Action decisions on Pi Day every year.
But, what exactly does Pi Day look like at MIT? Do students eat pie? Do people recite the digits of pi? Or maybe there’s a mysterious tradition that even I don’t know about.
So, I went around campus to get the scoop on how students and staff will be observing Pi Day 2025 — which, NASA tells me, is also a “blood moon” total lunar eclipse.
So Pi Day is when MIT releases admissions decisions to applicants, but I was wondering if students on campus do something to celebrate Pi Day. FRANK: Oh my gosh, it is Pi Day! I completely forgot. I’ve spent the whole day looking forward to Blood Moon Fest. JOHN: We’re both heading over there in a few minutes. Gonna be dope.
A festival? Sounds fun! What’s happening there? JOHN: I’m actually… not sure? (looks at Frank) Didn’t that one girl say there’s going to be a guest speaker? FRANK: Yeah, I remember that. And I think there’s something about costumes? The flyers didn’t really elaborate on—
FRANK AND JOHN: (in unison) “On the 14th of March, MMXXV, The High Elders foretold a cursed festivity. The Moon shall glow ablaze, like a dragon’s eye, A drop of scalding blood in the sky. From the Man in the Moon, to the embittered savant, Peculiar pupils and scholars shall haunt The grounds that are cast in the moonlight’s full, Only at the BLOOD MOON FESTIVAL.”
FRANK: I’m just going for the free merch.
We chatted a little more about student life before they left for the Fest. As I walked down the Infinite Corridor, the 251-meter hallway that passes through the main campus, I noticed a prominent trail of BLOOD MOON FEST flyers lining the wall. There was so much enthusiasm radiating from the walls that I couldn’t help but follow the trail myself.
Even then, I underestimated how excited students were about this “Blood Moon Fest,” until I ran into three more students who were eagerly reading the signs outside.
With Pi Day coming up, and MIT being known for its history of nerd culture, are you guys doing anything to celebrate Pi Day? NELLIE: Ooh, Pi Day! I completely forgot about that. I’ve been too busy making these mini moon-shaped cheeses to celebrate the Blood Moon Fest today. BEATRICE: (laughs) I’ve been drowning in sooo many math psets that I don’t think I can handle anything Pi Day-related. We’re all headed to the Fest right now.
GUSTAV: I’ve been busy figuring out my joint physics-philosophy degree. Allow me to demonstrate with this participatory thought experiment:
Brain Twister #43 (a) Please indicate which of the nine celestial bodies you would run over with a fusion-powered trolley to minimize harm to the rest of the Solar System. The trolley is traveling at 1% of the speed of light and can be approximated as a sphere of radius 1 meter.
BEATRICE: Ridiculous! A sphere?? That’s not how fluid dynamics works. A trolley is a hollow object. You’ll get super weird perturbations when you hit the atmosphere.
Is there anything you’re looking forward to at Blood Moon Fest? BEATRICE: Each roof support column on the trolley will result in vortex shedding, but I’m not sure what happens when you have multiple cylinders all lined up in two rows like that… NELLIE: Wait, would Jupiter blow up? The gas giants are mostly hydrogen, but I guess you don’t get oxygen until the troposphere… hmm. How light can I get the mass of the trolley?
Um… GUSTAV: That’s beside the point! You’re getting off track! Just stick to the original question! BEATRICE: The deceleration will only increase as the trolley goes deeper into the atmosphere, and we’ll burn off mass too, so–
GUSTAV: My beautiful philosophy! Ruined by your accursed applied mathematics! NELLIE: We can totally figure this out. Imagine this cheese represents Jupiter, FOR THE BLOOD MOON MUST NOT BE HARMED. THE BLOOD MOON IS SACRED. Now, imagine the eraser of this pencil represents your trolley, obviously not to scale…
The three students seemed to have completely forgotten I was there. Nellie and Beatrice wildly gesticulated at their notebooks while Gustav sent pleading eyes toward the heavens, as if hoping the Blood Moon would suddenly emerge to save him from the onslaught of mathematics of objects that were not, in fact, approximate as spheres.
I didn’t want to be late to the Blood Moon Fest, so I left these students to their debate and continued following the flyers.
I walked by labs filled with mysterious and important-looking equipment, and nearly got hit by a door as a professor exited her office. She was very kind, though. Turns out that we were both headed to Blood Moon Fest, so I was able to ask her a couple questions along the way.
As a professor, what are you doing for Pi Day this year? PROFESSOR: Hah! Nobody in the academic world talks about pi anymore. Everybody is too busy raving about MOONstones!
Moonstones? Like the gemstone? PROFESSOR: No no, those are moonstones. I’m talking about MOONstones!
Typically, I only share this little secret with my UROPs, my archnemeses, and strangers in the Kavli Institute lounges… but you look trustworthy.
In layman’s terms, MOONstones are like lucky charms mixed with kyber crystals, mixed with plutonium, mixed with Vicks Vaporub.
By optimizing the hyperintegrated parameterized eigen-matter of the BLOOD MOON’s gravitational flux, one can acquire LIMITLESS PSYCHIC POWER.
POWER ENOUGH TO LEAP ACROSS THE CHARLES RIVER.
POWER ENOUGH TO KNOCK THE STATA CENTER BACK INTO A NORMAL SHAPE.
POWER ENOUGH TO COMMAND A HORDE OF BEAVERS WITH TELEPATHY!
Our conversation delved deeper into the crystal structure of “MOONstones” before we got sidetracked discussing the latest Severance episode.
Soon, we arrived at the Blood Moon Fest that I’d been hearing about all day! It was a modest, but endearing sight. Students came in all kinds of costumes, mingling and chatting. Someone’s Bluetooth speaker was blasting a WMBR-hosted cover of “Red Moon Supernova” (a spin on the Chappell Roan song). I was roped into a spontaneous conga line that was started by the Moon Institute of Technology Club, a small group of students who are passionate about establishing a sister campus for MIT on the moon.
Even though the “festival” resembled an elementary school fundraiser, the air buzzed with an energy that rivaled Coachella.
Suddenly, a student rushed towards the venue yelling, “Hear ye, hear ye! The Man in the Moon is here!” Behind them, no one other than Stu Schmill walked forward as the student presented him with a handmade Blood Moon costume.
As he stepped up on a platform, a hush fell over the small crowd.
STU SCHMILL: Hey, everyone. Um, I’m not actually sure what’s going on, but I’m just glad to be here.
Students were cheering and screaming. Frank and John got so excited that they started punching the ground.
To be completely honest, there was a part of me that expected Blood Moon Fest to be something arcane and mystical. But in the end, it was just normal people coming together to celebrate the little joys and nerdy coincidences in this corner of the universe.
I guess the real magic was the friends we made along the way.
To check your decision, visit apply.mitadmissions.org/apply and go to your Application Status Page. That’s where you’ve been able to track your application checklist, which will now be turned off. We recommend that you try logging in now to make sure it goes smoothly!
If you need to reset your password, just go to apply.mitadmissions.org/apply, click the link to Log In, then click “Forgot Your Password?” and follow the instructions. If you still need help after that, feel free to email [email protected] and someone from the MIT Admissions team will get back to you.
In the meantime, you can gaze up at the night sky, imagine seeing the stars for the first time, and prepare yourself to admire the soon-to-be blood moon.
