> but it's reference to the pi vs tau debate is kind of silly This struck me as odd as well, but here's a possible justification. The ramshackleness of people

> but it's reference to the pi vs tau debate is kind of silly This struck me as odd as well, but here's a possible justification. The ramshackleness of people's understanding, the degree to which it's compromised by misconceptions, grows surprisingly rapidly as one moves away from their specific research focus. A rule of thumb is a post-doc in a subfield, looks elsewhere in the field like a graduate or undergraduate student, and in other fields like an undergraduate or pre-college student. Because that's when they last wrestled with the subject. And science education research shows the wrestling isn't going very well. It can be startling to be told by first-tier (non-astronomy) physical sciences grad students "the Sun doesn't have a color - it's lots of different colors - it's rainbow colored". Or to encounter first-tier medical school grad students, with no idea how big a red blood cell is, beyond "really really small". With science and engineering education working so badly, I feel uncomfortable dismissing even "trivial" improvements to widespread abstractions, without looking for education research. I don't feel I can reliably judge how badly it might be screwing us.