And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.don't rehearsemore quotes

PNAS Cover: Earth BioGenome Project

# visualization + design

The 2022 Pi Day art is a music album “three one four: a number of notes” . It tells stories from the very beginning (314…) to the very (known) end of π (...264) as well as math (Wallis Product) and math jokes (Feynman Point), repetition (nn) and zeroes (null).

# Pi Day 2022 — three one four: a number of notes — A musical journey into the digits of Pi

On March 14th celebrate $\pi$ Day. Hug $\pi$—find a way to do it.

For those who favour $\tau=2\pi$ will have to postpone celebrations until July 26th. That's what you get for thinking that $\pi$ is wrong. I sympathize with this position and have $\tau$ day art too!

If you're not into details, you may opt to party on July 22nd, which is $\pi$ approximation day ($\pi$ ≈ 22/7). It's 20% more accurate that the official $\pi$ day!

Finally, if you believe that $\pi = 3$, you should read why $\pi$ is not equal to 3.

Most of the art is available for purchase as framed prints and, yes, even pillows. Sleep's never been more important — I take custom requests.

3 There you go
1 Straight
4 Number me not
1 Scales
5 There is more of me
9 To forget than you can remember
—Emma Beauxis-Aussalet (314... piku)

Welcome to 2022 Pi Day: a celebration of $\pi$ and mathematics (and music).

This year I've done something very different — a surprise for both the ear and eye. Working with Gregory Coles, we've composed an album based on the mathematics of $\pi$.

The album is called “three one four: a number of digits” . It is a sixteen minute musical exploration of the digits of $\pi$. Experience this famous number from its beginning (Track 1 314…) to its very (known) end (Track 6 ...264), as well as the math (Track 3 Wallis Product) and jokes (Track 2 Feynman Point) behind it and aspects of its digits, such as repetition (Track 4 nn) and zeroes (Track 5 null).

The album is scored for solo piano in the style of 20th century classical music – each piece has a distinct personality, drawn from styles of Boulez and Stockhausen (314…), Ligeti (Feynman Point), Reich and Glass (Wallis Product), Satie (nn), Feldman (null), Powell and Monk (...264).

Each piece is accompanied by a piku (or πku), a poem whose syllable count is determined by a specific sequence of digits from π. I came up with the concept of a piku for 2020 Pi Day.

9 We know we can never have it all
2 Never
4 But yet can we
2 Ever
6 In endless scarcity
4 Have just enough?
—Emma Beauxis-Aussalet (...264 piku)

The piku collection were written by Emma Beauxis-Aussalet set of piku and each piku follows a syllable count that closely matches the theme of its track.

Our album was the theme of a Numberphile Podcast “The First and Last Digits of Pi” and appeared in Nature Briefing for March 14, 2022.

The 2020 Pi Day art celebrates the digits of $\pi$ with piku (パイク) —poetry inspired by haiku.
They serve as the form for The Outbreak Poems. On our 2022 Pi Day album "three one four: a number of notes", a piku accompanies each track.

I sit down with the composer of the album, Gregory Coles, and start the conversation about turning mathematics into music. Our attempt was to find a compelling balance between $\pi$ and the heart of a musician.

We go through the list of tracks on the album and give you a sense of what to expect.

The 2021 Pi Day art celebrates the digits of $\pi$ with a forest! Visit the bat cave and underwater ecosystems for the full experience.

## what to listen to first?

The 2018 Pi Day art celebrates the 30th anniversary of $\pi$ day and connects friends stitching road maps from around the world. Pack a sandwich and let's go!

## geek out on music theory and scores

If you're a music geek, you'll love our detailed discussion of the music theory behind each track and a thorough score analysis.

The 2017 Pi Day art imagines the digits of Pi as a star catalogue with constellations of extinct animals and plants. The work is featured in the article Pi in the Sky at the Scientific American SA Visual blog.

The entire album is arranged for solo piano and lovingly engraved. You can download the full score.

three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 11
three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 19
three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 29
three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 35
three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 41
three one four: a number of notes | piano score v07 | page 47

# Cancer Cell cover

Sat 23-04-2022

My cover design on the 11 April 2022 Cancer Cell issue depicts depicts cellular heterogeneity as a kaleidoscope generated from immunofluorescence staining of the glial and neuronal markers MBP and NeuN (respectively) in a GBM patient-derived explant.

LeBlanc VG et al. Single-cell landscapes of primary glioblastomas and matched explants and cell lines show variable retention of inter- and intratumor heterogeneity (2022) Cancer Cell 40:379–392.E9.

My Cancer Cell kaleidoscope cover (volume 40, issue 4, 11 April 2022). (more)

Browse my gallery of cover designs.

A catalogue of my journal and magazine cover designs. (more)

# Nature Biotechnology cover

Sat 23-04-2022

My cover design on the 4 April 2022 Nature Biotechnology issue is an impression of a phylogenetic tree of over 200 million sequences.

Konno N et al. Deep distributed computing to reconstruct extremely large lineage trees (2022) Nature Biotechnology 40:566–575.

My Nature Biotechnology phylogenetic tree cover (volume 40, issue 4, 4 April 2022). (more)

Browse my gallery of cover designs.

A catalogue of my journal and magazine cover designs. (more)

# Nature cover — Gene Genie

Sat 23-04-2022

My cover design on the 17 March 2022 Nature issue depicts the evolutionary properties of sequences at the extremes of the evolvability spectrum.

Vaishnav ED et al. The evolution, evolvability and engineering of gene regulatory DNA (2022) Nature 603:455–463.

My Nature squiggles cover (volume 603, issue 7901, 17 March 2022). (more)

Browse my gallery of cover designs.

A catalogue of my journal and magazine cover designs. (more)

# Happy 2022 $\pi$ Day—three one four: a number of notes

Mon 14-03-2022

Celebrate $\pi$ Day (March 14th) and finally hear what you've been missing.

“three one four: a number of notes” is a musical exploration of how we think about mathematics and how we feel about mathematics. It tells stories from the very beginning (314…) to the very (known) end of π (...264) as well as math (Wallis Product) and math jokes (Feynman Point), repetition (nn) and zeroes (null).

Listen to $\pi$ in the style of 20th century classical music. (details)

The album is scored for solo piano in the style of 20th century classical music – each piece has a distinct personality, drawn from styles of Boulez, Feldman, Glass, Ligeti, Monk, and Satie.

Each piece is accompanied by a piku (or πku), a poem whose syllable count is determined by a specific sequence of digits from π.

Check out art from previous years: 2013 $\pi$ Day and 2014 $\pi$ Day, 2015 $\pi$ Day, 2016 $\pi$ Day, 2017 $\pi$ Day, 2018 $\pi$ Day, 2019 $\pi$ Day, 2020 $\pi$ Day and 2021 $\pi$ Day.

# PNAS Cover — Earth BioGenome Project

Fri 28-01-2022

My design appears on the 25 January 2022 PNAS issue.

My PNAS cover design captures the vision of the Earth BioGenome Project — to sequence everything. (more)

The cover shows a view of Earth that captures the vision of the Earth BioGenome Project — understanding and conserving genetic diversity on a global scale. Continents from the Authagraph projection, which preserves areas and shapes, are represented as a double helix of 32,111 bases. Short sequences of 806 unique species, sequenced as part of EBP-affiliated projects, are mapped onto the double helix of the continent (or ocean) where the species is commonly found. The length of the sequence is the same for each species on a continent (or ocean) and the sequences are separated by short gaps. Individual bases of the sequence are colored by dots. Species appear along the path in alphabetical order (by Latin name) and the first base of the first species is identified by a small black triangle.

Lewin HA et al. The Earth BioGenome Project 2020: Starting the clock. (2022) PNAS 119(4) e2115635118.

# The COVID charts — hospitalization rates

Tue 25-01-2022

As part of the COVID Charts series, I fix a muddled and storyless graphic tweeted by Adrian Dix, Canada's Health Minister.

I show you how to fix color schemes to make them colorblind-accessible and effective in revealing patters, how to reduce redundancy in labels (a key but overlooked part of many visualizations) and how to extract a story out of a table to frame the narrative.

Clear titles introduce the graphic, which starts with informative and non-obvious observations of the relationship between age, number of comorbidities, vaccination status and hospitalization rates. Supporting the story is a tidy table that gives you detailed statistics for each demographic. (more)