By Anne Levin

A few weeks ago, Mimi Omiecinski was dropping off some posters for Pi Day Princeton at the front desk of Princeton Public Library when two teenaged boys who were walking by stopped to comment. “Oh, Pi Day,” one of them said to the other. “We have to do the Pie Eating Contest.”

Omiecinski, whose Princeton Tour Company started the annual Pi Day celebrations in 2009, was pleasantly surprised. “I said to them, ‘You know Pi Day?’ And they said, ‘Of course! We’ve done this since we were kids.’ It hit me then,” Omiecinski said. “This is a thing.”

Pi Day is a town-wide celebration of Princeton’s most famous former resident, Albert Einstein. This year’s events are on Saturday, March 9 and Thursday, March 14, which is Einstein’s actual birthday. Born in 1879 in Germany, the famed theoretical physicist emigrated to America and settled in Princeton in 1933 to escape religious persecution. He was among the first faculty members of the Institute for Advanced Study, serving until his death in Princeton in 1955.

Pi Day events were first held at the library. But the idea caught on and grew quickly, creating the need for additional sites. “Over the years, the crowd got so huge, and we had so many events that we had to include other locations,” Omiecinski said. “I wanted to say yes to everybody who wanted to host something. But COVID gave us a chance to reevaluate. What we realized is that the people who have been the most impacted by Pi Day are these little kids growing up in Princeton. So I’ve lowered the Pi Recitation age from 13 to 10, and the same with the Einstein Look-Alike Contest. I really want this to be something that if Einstein looks down on us, he says, ‘That’s sweet.’”

Most of this year’s activities are free and located at the library and other downtown spots, as well as Princeton Shopping Center. Included are the familiar Pie Eating contest, the Einstein Lookalike Contest, the Pi Recitation Contest, Dinky train rides with Einstein (played by Bill Agress), and the LiLLiPIES Pie Flight Contest.

Also scheduled are the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative fundraiser, Einstein Story Time with the Historical Society of Princeton, screenings of the films Balls of Fire and IQ, “That Physics Show” with Dave Maiullo of Rutgers University, an Einstein Birthday Picnic Party, a walking tour of Einstein’s famous homes and hangouts, the Albert Einstein Memorial Lecture, and what is billed as “The Do Not Miss 2024 Pi Day Princeton Worldwide Event by authors Gary Berger and Michael DiRuggiero,” which uses 150 images — some rarely seen — to tell the story of Einstein’s life and work.

The young winners of the Pi Recitation and Einstein Look-Alike contests receive $314.15, the number that is defined as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. For a complete list of events, times, and locations, visit Princetontourcompany.com.

“We’ve tightened it up a bit this year,” Omiecinski said. “The signature events seem to be what people lock in on. And the Historical Society, the library, and LiLLiPIES make it unique and different each year. I want to serve up the staples that people can count on.”