EPTTrig functions are so fucking cool it's a shame they don't get the understanding they deserve
Get rid of pi? - Page 15
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Kwidowmaker
Canada978 Posts
Trig functions are so fucking cool it's a shame they don't get the understanding they deserve | ||
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Dakk
Sweden572 Posts
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Gareth
United States39 Posts
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hasuprotoss
United States4647 Posts
On July 03 2011 04:24 Gareth wrote: but this'll make march 14th (3/14) not a holiday anymore ...And my birthday becomes one! Really, the change is trivial but I'd probably like to see it happen just because my unit circle is so bad. | ||
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TheToast
United States4808 Posts
On July 03 2011 04:04 evanthebouncy! wrote: yeah that's perhaps more pertinent. The amount of trouble metric system cause... lol, I am myself still trying to figure out how the metric system versus the US measurement system has anything to do with this thread at all. Personally I like the idea of embracing both pi and tau. I remember having trouble with radians back in high school and using tau certainly would have made things easier. | ||
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Raz0r
United States287 Posts
On July 02 2011 11:54 theonemephisto wrote: It's much easier to double something than to half it. As in, I would rather write 2pi ten times than have to write tau/2 once. The less fractions the better. More often than not, when using tau, you wouldn't have messy fractions to deal with as shown in the video. 1/4 of a circle is 1/4 tau radians, but for 1/4 of circle would be 1/2 pi radians. Tau could be plugged into many equations without the 2. It may seem petty to get rid of but think about how many miscalculations could be prevented by having one less step. The more steps a problem takes, it is that much more likely you could potentially make a mistake, either through calculators or in your mind. | ||
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tskuzzy
United States33 Posts
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annYeong(o11)
Canada784 Posts
I was a little skeptical at first "won't change anything or wouldn't be worth the hassle of changing everything" the fact that tau radians are much more intuitive than pi radians (i.e. 1/3th of a circle = 1/3 tau radians as opposed to 1/6 pi radians) I think thats much more useful and natural (which is in my mind, what mathematics strives to be) and well worth the trouble of learning the area of a circle as 1/2(tau)r^2 instead of (pi)r^2 that and Euler's equation somehow got sexier e^(tau)(i) = 1 as opposed to e^(pi)(i) = -1 or e^(pi)(i) + 1 = 0. tau fighting! | ||
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Tortious_Tortoise
United States944 Posts
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blankspace
United States292 Posts
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Hundisilm
Estonia99 Posts
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Maenander
Germany4926 Posts
On July 03 2011 04:55 annYeong(o11) wrote: wow, I'm actually amazed at how nice everything works out with tau. I was a little skeptical at first "won't change anything or wouldn't be worth the hassle of changing everything" the fact that tau radians are much more intuitive than pi radians (i.e. 1/3th of a circle = 1/3 tau radians as opposed to 1/6 pi radians) I think thats much more useful and natural (which is in my mind, what mathematics strives to be) and well worth the trouble of learning the area of a circle as 1/2(tau)r^2 instead of (pi)r^2 that and Euler's equation somehow got sexier e^(tau)(i) = 1 as opposed to e^(pi)(i) = -1 or e^(pi)(i) + 1 = 0. tau fighting! 1/3 of a full turn is 2/3 pi rad not 1/6 pi rad. But why shouldn't we redefine the radians in terms of the diameter instead? Circumference of the circle is pi*d, now wouldn't that be easy all of a sudden ^_^ π is used in countless books, computer programs and minds, I just don't see a justification to introduce a "new" (redundant) constant for so little gain. It would have been worth discussing hundreds of years ago, but not now. | ||
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Kupo
Sweden151 Posts
That being said it's too late to fix it now and tau is a terrible symbol to use since it's the perfect letter when integrating over time intervals. | ||
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Albrithe
Canada187 Posts
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Frigo
Hungary1023 Posts
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chickenhawk
Portugal339 Posts
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sureshot_
United States257 Posts
![[image loading]](http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/7680/2pi.png) Sure maybe it will make a crap ton of physics equations more pretty to look at, but it's going to make Euler's and a bunch of other equations just as equally less pleasing to look at. | ||
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JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
On July 03 2011 10:54 sureshot_ wrote:Sure maybe it will make a crap ton of physics equations more pretty to look at, but it's going to make Euler's and a bunch of other equations just as equally less pleasing to look at. No it wouldn't : < | ||
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Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Lebesgue
4542 Posts
And what about the countless articles written with symbol pi? If they change it to tau they will have to keep teaching everyone an extra equation: tau = 2*pi... | ||
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