
Pi Is Wrong - llambda
http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.html
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pwpwp
Instead of whether we should use Pi or 2*Pi, I find much more interesting R.
Buckminster Fuller's statements that "Pi is operationally irrelevant" and that
"Nature is not using Pi".

"Inasmuch as the kind of mathematics I had learned of in school required the
use of the XYZ coordinate system and the necessity of placing π in calculating
the spheres, I wondered, "to how many decimal places does nature carry out π
before she decides that the computation can't be concluded?" Next I wondered,
"to how many aribtrary decimal places does nature carry out the transcendental
irrational before she decides to say it's a bad job and call it off?" If
nature uses π she has to do what we call fudging of her design which means
improvising, compromisingly. I thought sympathetically of nature's having to
make all those myriad frustrated decisions each time she made a bubble. I
didn't see how she managed to formulate the wake of every ship while managing
the rest of the universe if she had to make all those decisions. So I said to
myself, "I don't think nature uses π. I think she has some other mathematical
way of coordinating her undertakings.""

From
[http://content.stamen.com/buckminster_fuller_and_the_beauty_...](http://content.stamen.com/buckminster_fuller_and_the_beauty_of_bubbles)

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lutorm
Hogwash. Mathematics is a way of describing nature, not the other way around.
And doesn't Gödel's incompleteness theorem make it clear that any such attempt
must necessarily be flawed?

~~~
m_for_monkey
_"Hogwash"_

I wouldn't dare to say that about Dr Fuller...

 _"Mathematics is a way of describing nature, not the other way around."_

He doesn't say otherwise, he says that our description of nature (that we are
using pi) is flawed.

~~~
backprojection
"he says that our description of nature (that we are using pi) is flawed"

Every description we'll ever have will probably be flawed to some degree.

I concur that it's hogwash

~~~
sev
Agreed. Forget Pi, maybe the way we count is flawed!

~~~
nodemaker
I think any way of counting will have the same basic axioms
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms>)

Also See _What are numbers, and what is their meaning?: Dedekind_
[http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/dedek/ded...](http://www.math.uwaterloo.ca/~snburris/htdocs/scav/dedek/dedek.html)

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adeelk
See also [1], where Terence Tao suggests that 2 _pi_ _i_ may be even more
fundamental than both 2 _pi_ and _pi_ , and [2] for some explanation on why.

[1] [http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2007/08/is-pi-
define...](http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2007/08/is-pi-defined-in-
best-way.html)

[2] <http://qchu.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/pi-is-still-wrong/>

~~~
Sniffnoy
Of course tau * i is what's really fundamental; however it's much more
convenient to have the notation refer to a real constant. Firstly, one might
be working in a context where complex numbers are not present, and to have to
use them just to even refer to a real constant would be an annoyance.
Secondly, if one defines a real constant tau, it is then easy to talk about
the imaginary version i * tau; whereas one defining an imaginary constant, and
having to divide by i or multiply by -i to get the real version would be
somewhat annoying. Thirdly, if one went with the complex version, there'd be
the whole "i or -i" problem due to the symmetry of the complex numbers -- OK,
I guess this is not really an actual problem, but it would be slightly
annoying, especially in context where dealing with complex numbers at all
isn't really necessary. Whereas defining tau to be a positive real number gets
rid of that problem.

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RyanMcGreal
Vi Hart explains the issue much more enjoyably:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ>

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alanh
Just slightly a link-bait-esque title. Can we rename it to e.g. “Tau: Why 2π
Would Be a Better Constant than Pi”?

~~~
archgoon
Tau is pretty much designed for link bait. It's worse than the programming
flamewars, and on even shakier ground when people claim that it matters. Just
wait until people start calculating the amount of energy saved if people used
tau instead of 2 pi.

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gambler
Unfortunately, mathematical notation has tons of historical cruft like this.
And there will be people who will fight tooth and nail to preserve all those
artificial complexities.

Personally, I always believed that improving the notation would have huge
benefits in the future.

~~~
jerfelix
But then you have a different problem. See <http://xkcd.com/927/> (it's the
one about standards.)

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softbuilder
Notation aside, I like the term "turn" used for the whole unit. If you say 2
pi or 1 tau, it's still cloaked in traditional mathspeak. That kills
opportunities for intuitive understanding, which can be a foothold for some.

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lutusp
Its tendentious title aside, all very useful and reasonable, up to but not
including the "\newpi" symbol at the end of the article, which IMHO is an
abomination with three legs.

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bwarp
I tell people it's half right :-)

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jdietrich
A rebuttal:

<http://www.thepimanifesto.com/>

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rmk
If only more articles like this made it to the frontpage... Instead articles
about the MPAA and RIAA seem to make it to the frontpage more and more.

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ctdonath
Still have the "tau circle" printout nailed to my cube wall from the last time
HN hashed this issue out. (Rather like the idea...)

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kingkawn
I've seen articles like this before, but wondered if pi originates from
astronomy working with a more or less 180 degree horizon.

~~~
lutorm
Whether pi or 2pi or 4pi is more convenient depends on whether you're working
with circumference, area, or solid angle. Circumference was probably the
easiest thing to measure.

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kindlyviking
Tau day! <http://tauday.com/>

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traldan
I'd rather type 2\pi than \frac{\tau}{2}.

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pkulak
Pi is exactly 3!

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kang
You can downvote me, but this is an overkill;

All gungho just because pi sounded like pie and it went viral just like
kolaveri di.

