EPTGet rid of pi? - Page 2
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micronesia
United States24753 Posts
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Picklesicle
United States64 Posts
The fact that every one of us has been raised and trained with pi makes it much more natural and easy for us to use: as a general rule, humans aren't fond of changes like that; remember the outcry over Pluto (another topic for another place)? But from an educational point of view the ease with which tau works with geometry just as described in the article in the OP is, well, elegant and intuitive. I was not one of the natural mathematicians in my group; I had to slog pretty darn hard at it to get to where I am and tau would have been more intuitive for me. Thus, in response to the question that ends the OP, I think that making tau the norm for most of the places we now use and teach pi is absolutely a good idea. In response to the topic title, though, we will never get rid of pi. It is an important and useful tool. We still use Newtonian mechanics, don't we? Edited out an inelegant example. Sincere thanks, JeeJee. Good catch. Dumb on my part. | ||
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Mastermind
Canada7096 Posts
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xHassassin
United States270 Posts
:| IMO it just causes confusion, and god knows there's already enough mathematics incompetence in the American school system. Overhauling something like the US measuring system in favor of metric would make sense, but something like this just seems pointless. | ||
flamewheel
FREEAGLELAND26782 Posts
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Iranon
United States983 Posts
On July 02 2011 11:41 Muirhead wrote: :X As a mathematician, I can say "who cares?" :D As a mathematician-in-training, I agree. It's just a number. Who cares what constants appear in equations, they're just constants... The only reason pi is neat is because it shows up in many contexts and there's a lot of history behind it. Sure, 2pi shows up in many contexts too, but so does pi/2, and so does 1/(2pi), and so does any number of things that nobody bothers to give a special name to. Who are these mathematicians who think it's "crazy" that we say 2pi for the angle 6.283... radians? Apparently not ones who have better things to do with their time, say for example, doing actual mathematics... | ||
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fuzzy_panda
New Zealand1681 Posts
On July 02 2011 11:44 GGTeMpLaR wrote: I feel like the US should make a full switch to the metric system before we consider changing pi. lol this is probably far more important. seriously come on united states make an effort to convert! the metric system makes total sense and won't lead you to embarrassing NASA mistakes | ||
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Dave[9]
United States2365 Posts
edit: I hate the name of that yahoo story "mathematicians" as if half of them are aware of this so called style sweep. At my uni I have never once seen people trying to replace tau with pi, even in the courses that use it often. I still think it's the hipster mathematicians trying to make this happen. | ||
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theonemephisto
United States409 Posts
As in, I would rather write 2pi ten times than have to write tau/2 once. The less fractions the better. | ||
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Maliris
Northern Ireland2557 Posts
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T0fuuu
Australia2275 Posts
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phantem
United States163 Posts
In my opinion this comes out to be kinda like the metric system--the metric system may be better but in the US we're pretty stuck on the english system so changing now would cause a huge headache. Also pi is the only pi, there are a couple of taus: torque, shear, or time constant. My handwriting is bad enough and my subjects already use enough cross over symbols so please just keep pi pi. | ||
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Bactrian
Australia176 Posts
On July 02 2011 11:35 L3gendary wrote: I say no, just for the sake of Euler's identity. e^iT = 1 | ||
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JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
On July 02 2011 11:48 Picklesicle wrote: Oh, and we'll stick we e^(pi*i). There would be an instance of pi being more elegant than tau. e^(i*pi) = -1 vs e^(i*tau) = 1 seems equally elegant to me  | ||
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TrinitySC
101 Posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ The only reason to hold onto pi is from purely sentimental. First guy to reply said that the US still uses the imperial, but the fact that it's still used doesn't make it any less stupid, in my very correct opinion (vide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter). Tau just seems to be a better way to do things from a practical point of view. Also, as stated in the video, e^(iTau)=1. better than e^(iPi)=-1, I'd say. Edit: Ninja'd, gg Bactrian. but eh. still relevant. | ||
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WATER!
United States26 Posts
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Barbiero
Brazil5259 Posts
Damn I want that pie. Either way, I'm in favor of the tau movement. I mean, just for the sake of convention, call tau = 2pi and that's it. Everyone uses which one they thing it is right. The reason I'm in favor of it is radians. I HATE radians. Tau would just make them easy to understand. | ||
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KaBoom300
United States225 Posts
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yellingnewt
United States22 Posts
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Clearout
Norway1060 Posts
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