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You're right about the bikeshedness, but that doesn't mean there isn't a clearly better bike shed design. I also find that these sorts of inefficiencies/inelega
by jessriedel 10y ago
You're right about the bikeshedness, but that doesn't mean there isn't a clearly better bike shed design. I also find that these sorts of inefficiencies/inelegances compound. One or two are trivial, but when you have 30 of them, suddenly the mental tax becomes noticeable.
Furthermore, the cost falls mostly on the students, while the experts have already paid it and don't see the need to worry about it anymore.
- lamontcg 10y agoYeah, but this bikeshed got decided hundreds of years ago. Its only appealing to internet hipsters who want to brag about their organically grown free range tau. Making the next generation of math students use "2 pi" in their formulas is going to be vastly easier than literally rewriting all the books.
- Asooka 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html Essentially there are two rules here: don't post or upvote crap links, and don't be rude or dumb in comment threads. The most important principle on HN, though, is to make thoughtful comments. Thoughtful in both senses: civil and substantial. So the principle here is: don't say anything you wouldn't say face to face.
- jessriedel 10y agoAs a practicing physicist, I found it illuminating and non-trivially useful to know this when it was first introduced to me years ago. This is true even though I will never use in a paper, and even if I only rarely write it in my notes. In my head, 2\pi is a single character, to the point that I often write \frac{1}{2} 2\pi.