Brier

NORTH SMITHFIELD — For some kids, the Fourth of July is the big non-gift holiday deal, fireworks and explosives. For the romantics, maybe Valentines Day gets them going. For Corey Sper Brier, North Smithfield High School’s valedictorian, the big day is in March.

His holiday is March 14, Pi Day, named after the mathematical value pi. You get pi by dividing the circumference of a circle by its diameter, and no matter how big or how small, the result is always roughly 3.14. It’s a non-repeating infinite number, meaning no matter how long you keep at the division problem, it will never end.

It is usually expressed in a short version, 3.14. It’s one of the most important constant in mathematics; formulas in engineering, mathematics and other sciences rely on it. Brier, for his part, has memorized it to 50 decimal places.

So every March 14, Brier goes nuts.

He has a pi shirt, with the Greek letter pi emblazoned on it, that he wears. He makes up Pi Day fliers at home and brings hundreds of them to school.

“I hand to them to everyone in the building, whether they want them or not,” he said.

Robin Sper, his mother, said that enthusiasm was no surprise. “Math is like oxygen to him,” she said.

He owned a TI80 calculator with a translucent case, but he wanted something special.

“I figured I would make my calculations individualized,” he said. So he took it apart and added another battery and three light-emitting diodes to light it up from inside. It’s the kind of expertise his mother says she will miss when he’s gone.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do at my computer when it does some weird thing,” she said. “I won’t be able to cry ‘Corey!’ ”

Brier also followed his musical interests. He played clarinet and was good enough to qualify for the 2008 Rhode Island Music Educators Association Senior Division All-State Band and to win the 2008 John Phillip Sousa Award at North Smithfield High School.

But Brier didn’t limit his musical interests to the clarinet, which he said is his passion. He decided on his own that he wanted to learn how to play the violin. He had to seek out lessons on his own, since North Smithfield didn’t have a high school violin program. He played with the Mount St. Charles String Ensemble instead.

His choice of college, Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, has a highly regarded mathematic and engineering programs and an extensive music program as well.

“Case Western is a fusion of music and math,” his mother said. “Just like him.”

jhill@projo.com