Pi loses to Tau

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
As a physicist I can confirm that you find "2 pi" much more often than pi.

However, some things are just "tradition" in science and there's not much to gain from switching to "tau".

And besides, tau spoils Euler's Identity.

e ^ (i * tau/2) + 1 = 0 just isn't as elegant. The two spoils it.

I guy I teach with likes this Tau thing, he pointed it out to me a few months ago while teaching night school together.

It is a unique idea, but it won't get any traction.

http://tauday.com/

So a history of mathematics will now expalin that 2,600 years ago (say) the Greeks solved some of the most profound questions with the use of Pi, and this shaped centuries of thought, which was not actually wrong, just that some American at the end of the 20th Century thought it was not as nice as Tau and that, children, is why we celebrate Tau Day. I can see why an American would think that might work. Next best to claiming an American discovered Pi.

Originally posted by finnegan
So a history of mathematics will now expalin that 2,600 years ago (say) the Greeks solved some of the most profound questions with the use of Pi, and this shaped centuries of thought, which was not actually wrong, just that some American at the end of the 20th Century thought it was not as nice as Tau and that, children, is why we celebrate Tau Day. I can ...[text shortened]... ee why an American would think that might work. Next best to claiming an American discovered Pi.

Terry Tao is hardly an american and he also endores tau. I'm hardly an american and I also endorse tau. And no I don't put myself as in the same league as Terry Tao.

Originally posted by adam warlock
Terry Tao is hardly an american and he also endores tau. I'm hardly an american and I also endorse tau. And no I don't put myself as in the same league as Terry Tao.

Are we letting facts get in the way of a good argument here? 😛

Originally posted by finnegan
Are we letting facts get in the way of a good argument here? 😛

Sometimes I can be an insufferable twit. Sorry about that... 😞

Why do we need to embrace either one - aren't there enough constants that we can use either as needed?

Another issue in mind - how many of you are really going to commit to memory that Nth' digit of Tau the way you did with pi. I can go to 3.14159265 and that's about where I stop. I suspect at one time or another I had more digits under my belt.

Originally posted by WoodPush
Why do we need to embrace either one - aren't there enough constants that we can use either as needed?

Another issue in mind - how many of you are really going to commit to memory that Nth' digit of Tau the way you did with pi. I can go to 3.14159265 and that's about where I stop. I suspect at one time or another I had more digits under my belt.

It doesn't really matter how many digits you memorize, you will be wrong. Even the trillion+ digits now figured out by supercomputers are still wrong, just less wrong.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It doesn't really matter how many digits you memorize, you will be wrong. Even the trillion+ digits now figured out by supercomputers are still wrong, just less wrong.

But GOD knows ALL the digits of pi.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It doesn't really matter how many digits you memorize, you will be wrong. Even the trillion+ digits now figured out by supercomputers are still wrong, just less wrong.

should be using limits to discover the area of a circle instead of this messy pi business anyway...