American Music Awards: 8 stars who stole the show

 

At the American Music Awards on Sunday, there was plenty of love for international artists.

British boy band One Direction was a big winner at the 2014 ceremony, taking home both the artist of the year award and the trophy for favorite pop/rock band, duo or group.

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea, who walked into the ceremony as the lead nominee with six nods, also won two awards on Sunday, including the favorite rap/hip-hop album honor.

"This award is the first award I've ever won in my entire life, and it means so much to me that it is for best hip-hop because that's what inspired me to move to America and pursue my dreams, and it's what helped me when I was a teenager to escape and to get through my life and to better times," Azalea told the audience while accepting her trophy.

Meanwhile, soulful British singer Sam Smith, who showcased his pipes during Sunday's ceremony, was awarded the favorite pop/rock male artist trophy.

That's not to say that homegrown artists were left out in the cold: Katy Perry, Beyonce and country stars like Luke Bryan also got their due.

But some stars shone brighter than others during what wound up being a rather tame affair. Once the AMAs were all said and done, here's who left everyone talking:

1. Taylor Swift

Talk about star power. On Sunday, music's reigning pop princess, Taylor Swift, received the Dick Clark Award of Excellence from none other than Diana Ross.

Swift, being the smart young woman she is, recognized the importance of having the trailblazer there, and honored Ross in her acceptance speech.

"I'm just so blown away to have just received an award from Diana Ross, who over the course of her career stood up for herself so many times in a time when it was not popular for a woman to stand up for herself," she said. "I'm so honored."

Swift, who performed her single "Blank Space" on Sunday, also thanked her fans for pushing sales of her new album "1989" well past one million. The album is not available on the streaming service Spotify, and during her speech for her Dick Clark award, Swift appeared to be sticking to her guns.

"What you did by going out and investing in music and albums is you're saying that you believe in the same thing that I believe in, that music is valuable and should be consumed in albums, and albums should be consumed as art and appreciated," Swift said.

2. Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez promised to perform her single "Booty" at the AMAs, and the singer/actress gave a set for the ages.

Iggy Azalea was there, too, but even she admitted that J. Lo (and her flexibility) stole the show.

Read More

How America celebrates Pi Day

(CNN) -- March 14 is my favorite day to be a nerd.

Across the country, math geeks in museums, schools, private groups and elsewhere gather to celebrate the number pi, approximately 3.14. That's why March 14 -- 3-14 -- is Pi Day. What's more, Albert Einstein was born on this day.

A quick refresher: Pi is defined as the distance around a perfect circle, or the circumference, divided by the distance across it, or the diameter. It is also involved in calculating the area of a circle, the volume of a sphere, and many other mathematical formulas you might need in the sciences.

 

Baking up a little fun on pi day

 

Throughout history, people have been captivated by this number because there is no way to calculate it exactly by a simple division on your calculator. What's more, its digits go on infinitely, without any pattern in the numbers. 3.1415926535897932 ... etc. Even that many digits are more than most people would need for everyday use, but some folks have been inspired to memorize thousands of digits of pi, or even use the digits to create poetry or music.

On Pi Day, one number 'reeks of mystery'

Math may be scary, but pi is not -- as evidenced by the widespread revelry on Pi Day. One might even say -- gasp! -- it's cool to like pi these days. Even the House of Representatives supported the designation of March 14 as National Pi Day in 2009.

In countries where the day is written before the month, Friday is 14-3, which looks less like pi. "And so Pi Day is an acquired taste," mathematician Jonathan Borwein, at the University of Newcastle in Australia, said in an e-mail.

Conveniently, "pi" sounds like "pie," and pies are round. You could celebrate Pi Day in a casual way by grabbing a slice of pastry, or pizza. If you're in enrolled in school, your math class or math department might be doing something special already.

Follow CNN Science News

Facebook: CNNScience

Twitter: @CNNLightYears

But if you happen to live in a particularly pi-happy place, you might be able to take part in some larger-scale, pi-inspired activities.

Where Pi Day began

If you want to go where the day is said to be "invented," look no further than San Francisco's Exploratorium. Larry Shaw, who worked in the electronics group at the museum, began the tradition in 1988. Last year was Pi Day's 25th anniversary there.

Pi Day began as a small gathering with mostly museum staff. Now it's a public pi extravaganza featuring a "Pi procession," whose attendees get a number -- 0 to 9 -- and line up in the order of pi's digits: 3.14159265 ... you get the idea.

The parade ends at the "pi shrine" -- a pi symbol with digits spiraling around it embedded in the sidewalk, which was unveiled last year.

The Exploratorium installed this "pi shrine" in the sidewalk in front of its new location in 2013.

For those who can't attend in person, the Exploratorium has a Second Life Pi Day event that includes "irrational exhibits, fireworks, cheerleaders, music, and dancing." The museum also lists a bunch of educational activities to teach about the concept of pi.

On Pi Day, is 'pi' under attack?

Where Einstein lived

On the opposite coast, the leafy university town where Albert Einstein spent the last 22 years of his life is showing community-wide exuberance for pi.

Princeton, New Jersey, kicks off Pi Day weekend on Thursday night with a reading by physicist Charles Adler, then heads into a full day of activities on Friday, including a walking tour of Einstein's neighborhood and a pizza pie-making contest.

The pie-eating contest takes place at McCaffrey's supermarket, while an Einstein look-alike competition will match mustaches and wild gray hair at the Princeton Public Library.

Pi fans who have been spending the last year memorizing digits can show off and compete at the library, where the winner among 7- to 13-year-olds can take home a cool pi-hundred (That is, $314.15). The Historical Society of Princeton will have an Einstein birthday party. Tetsuya Miyamoto, inventor of the KENKEN puzzle, will speak at the library as well.

In Princeton, New Jersey, a child dresses up as Albert Einstein for Pi Day 2013.

The "brainiac town" residents "love this event because it's a way for them to celebrate how quirky they are," said Mimi Omiecinski, owner of the Princeton Tour Company, who started Princeton Pi Day in 2009. "A lot of them get super into it." Last year about 9,000 people participated, she said.

Along with her fascination with Albert Einstein, Omiecinski was inspired to launch a town-wide Pi Day after she heard that the Princeton University mathematics department celebrates March 14 with pie-eating and pi-reciting (As a Princeton student, I got second place for most digits in 2005 and 2006).

Even more pi

Chicago is getting into the pi business too. Lots of restaurants and bakeries are offering Pi Day specials. The Illinois Science Council and Fleet Feet Sports are hosting a 3.14-mile walk/run Friday night, with discounts for anyone named Albert, Alberta or Albertina. Philly.com highlights two options for satisfying your pie cravings in the City of Brotherly Love.

Bostonians can head to Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Pi Time (3:14 p.m.) for pi-themed activities such as "Throw Pie at Your Best Friend on High-Speed Camera."

The Museum of Science in Boston has educational Pi Day events, and the Seattle Children's Museum will celebrate too.

Even the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, will celebrate the day, as "Dali loved the irrational numbers Pi and Phi, often using them and other mathematical principles in his art," according to the museum. If you live in the area, check out their schedule of math-inspired films and tours throughout the day.

There are plenty of online resources too, such as piday.org.

Outside of the physical classroom, Pi Day will be celebrated online through Google's virtual classroom project. David Blatner, author of the comprehensive book "The Joy of Pi," is hosting a Pi Day competition in which students from three classrooms will square off to see who can recite the most digits of pi from memory.

How did Pi Day become such a big thing?

Blatner says that Pi Day has become a hit for the same reason the new "Cosmos" TV show is getting so much attention.

"People all around the world are hungry to make science and math fun and interesting," he said in an e-mail. "We know math and science is important, we know that it's fascinating, but we often don't know how to make it fun and interesting. Pi Day gives us a great excuse to throw away our fear of math and say 'Hey, it IS kind of neat!' "

If you agree, just wait until 3/14/15 -- or as one popular Facebook group calls it, "The Only Pi Day of Our Lives."

That's because pi to four digits after the decimal is 3.1415, and we're unlikely to survive until 2115 to see that second instance of pi perfection.

So get ready next year to take a picture of your digital clock on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53 a.m. That'll be worth more than a thousand digits.

Read More