Originally posted by KazetNagorraAnd besides, tau spoils Euler's Identity.
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".
e ^ (i * tau/2) + 1 = 0 just isn't as elegant. The two spoils it.
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 finneganTerry 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.
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.
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 WoodPushIt 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.
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 sonhouseshould be using limits to discover the area of a circle instead of this messy pi business anyway...
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.