if Pi suddenly = 2

How would the world change?

You'd have to have a factor of the new pi each time, either that or the world will shrink.

We may be led to:

Thread 30589

How would we know? To experience the change we need a point of reference. All points of reference would have change to accomodate the news laws of physics, and anything regarding pi=3.141592654... would be regarded as hypothetical musings and as the same type of trivial things as this discussion now.

Originally posted by celticcountry
How would the world change?

Would basically mean pi has been redefined. Then for a circle:

C=1.570796 * pi * D

where C is circumference and D is diameter.

A new irrational number would have been introduced which would be rather pointless (which is effectively half the original pi). 🙂

The world would also not change much, just be a tad more confusing.

Why have half a pi when you can have a whole one?

Originally posted by lausey
Why have half a pi when you can have a whole one?

But you can't halve your pi and eat it 😵

We would all die instantly (or something worse).

The problem here, is the ratio of volume to surface area (apologies to the purists, but I have no ability or desire to make this technical).

If pi changes, then the ratio of the area of a sphere to its surface would change, resulting in all kinds of nasty stuff.

Originally posted by Alcra
We would all die instantly (or something worse).

The problem here, is the ratio of volume to surface area (apologies to the purists, but I have no ability or desire to make this technical).

If pi changes, then the ratio of the area of a sphere to its surface would change, resulting in all kinds of nasty stuff.

????? That is nonsense:
volume = 4/3*Pi*r³
surface = 4*Pi*r²
volume/surface = r/3 which is INDEPENDENT of Pi.

But knowing that the circumference is Pi times the diameter, it would mean that the earth is flat in all directions, i.e. has collapsed into a single point. And so would everything. But hey, why not, if Pi can change, this should be possible as well 😕

The circle would be squarable!

pi is = to 3.14... on and on and on. it never ends, its an irrational number because it never ends, therefore can never be put on a fraction. .56565656... repeats itself over and over again but it can still be put as a fraction. .56565656... instead of going over 100 in a fraction (since its 2 digits that repeat) it would go over 99 (again cause 2 digits repeat. it would be 56/99. pi however does not repeat so it cant be put as a fraction thus it is irrational, but its still a number. if pi suddenly =2 it wouldnt mean anything because since pi is a number, though irrational, it will always be there. if 3.14 suddenly equals pi, 3.14 would still be there, and still be used for the same calculation when finding area of sphere or some other object pi is needed in, but it wouldnt be calld pi. 2 would be called pi.

Originally posted by celticcountry
How would the world change?

"The illustrative (and somewhat apocryphal) story is that at the end of the 1800s, Indiana attempted to round off pi to three. They were ridiculed, and rightfully so: a circle won't close if pi is rounded off. Manhole covers would fall in, umbrellas would let in the rain and pizzas would be served up with a slice missing. The final straw probably came when the legislators realized their share of the tax pie might be smaller. Pi was quickly allowed to become an irrational number again."

http://www.scienceforpeople.com/Essays/bioethics.htm

I'd like to say "Only in america", but I won't. 🙄

D

Originally posted by Ragnorak
"The illustrative (and somewhat apocryphal) story is that at the end of the 1800s, Indiana attempted to round off pi to three. They were ridiculed, and rightfully so: a circle won't close if pi is rounded off. Manhole covers would fall in, umbrellas would let in the rain and pizzas would be served up with a slice missing. The final straw probably came whe ...[text shortened]... rpeople.com/Essays/bioethics.htm

I'd like to say "Only in america", but I won't. 🙄

D

objects wouldnot change if pi suddenly equaled 2. things would not automatically become different shapes. you can hold a red apple in one hand. you can look at that red apple and say "you are now a green apple". you can say that but it wont change to green. i can sit here and say "pi suddenly equals 2". but circles wouldnt suddenly become squarish or whatever. hey, the leader of the world could say it and it wouldnt happen.

Originally posted by celticcountry
How would the world change?

So did you get that from my profile? Thats exactly what I said.
If pi were =2, this sentence would not be possible.
I think the gist of that would be we would be in a universe with
more dimesions than we have showing now, say 6 or 7.
Circles may not be deliniated by pi. Or something like that......
Maybe circles would be banned🙂
Maybe there could only be elipses up to a certain point then get
interfered by another dimension butting in....

well, you could do this, take a circle, and the radius would be the circumference, divided by 2 and then divided by pi. however, imagine taking the center of the circle and raising it towards you, you get a cone. now, the distance from that vertex at the top of the cone to the edge would be greater than the circumference of the base divided by (2pi) so perhaps if pi were any greater, then space might be warped from where there were circles to where there would be cones, which could lead to another spatial dimension or something. this could be the result of warping pi into 2. another thought is if pi became 4. the only way the radius could be smaller on a circle (that i can think of) is if the center was not a point but its own circle, i.e. the circle was donut. therefore the distance from the inner circle to the circumference would be C/(2*4). meaning all circles get turned into donuts. however, this means the circles which compose the centers of the donut circles in pi=4 land would also be donuts, and so on ad infinitum. what you get is complete breakdown of the definition of a point and a lot of absurdities.

Originally posted by trallphaz
objects wouldnot change if pi suddenly equaled 2. things would not automatically become different shapes. you can hold a red apple in one hand. you can look at that red apple and say "you are now a green apple". you can say that but it wont change to green. i can sit here and say "pi suddenly equals 2". but circles wouldnt suddenly become squarish or whatever. hey, the leader of the world could say it and it wouldnt happen.

Everything would change if Pi suddenly equalled 2. Things wouldn't change if some wacky scientist decided to suddenly say Pi = 2.

Q.E.

D.