Pizza Hut taps Princeton University professor emeritus for ‘National Pi Day’ math contest

Pizza Hut is celebrating National Pi Day with a little help from a distinguished emeritus Princeton University mathematics professor.

Pi Day arrives Monday, March 14 — otherwise known as 3/14, as in Pi's 3.14 value. In honor of the date, Pizza Hut plans to enlist Princeton's Professor Emeritus John H. Conway's help with creating some math problems that could give some lucky winners free pizza for 3.14 years.

Conway, who recently was profiled in the 2015 book, Genius at Play: The Curious Mind of John Horton Conway, is known for his work in combinatorial game theory and coding theory, among other subjects. His role will be to come up with three math problems that Pizza Hut will use to determine the contest's winners.

"Pi may be irrational, but free pizza is anything but," Conway said. "I'm eager to challenge America with these problems and find the next great pizza-loving mathematician that can solve them."

Conway's problems will range in difficulty from high school level to PhD level, with all three being released at 8 a.m. on March 14 on the Pizza Hut blog. Answers should be provided in the coming blog's comments section.

Winners will receive what Pizza Hut considers to be the equivalent of 3.14 years of free pizza — $1,600 in Pizza Hut gift cards.

Pizza-loving math geniuses, now is your time.