4 ms·
Happy Tau Day, the true circle constant
- gakos 8y agoTau > Pi? But what will we eat on Tau day? Tau-cos have my vote. A tortilla is still a circle we can describe mathematically with tau.
- nikofeyn 8y agothe argument for tau is so silly, and it seems to be mainly supported by non-mathematicians. i don’t know of any real mathematician that cares. and it’s because it’s a toss-up really. so people just keep going. there’s more importnat things to do.
- gakos 8y agoSure, more important things to do. But isn't a minimal change to a plethora of formulas that simplifies things worth consideration? How far are you along the circumference of a circle? Or what's this angle in radians? Isn't Taur vs 2Pi*r easier both conceptually and computationally?
- nikofeyn 8y agowhen i was doing graduate mathematics, i felt that there were just as many formulas that would be hurt by a change to tau as there were those helped by it. proponents of tau seem to cherry pick and don’t showcase everywhere that you’ll pick up tau/2, which is objectively more awkward than occurences of pi and 2*pi. switching to tau isn’t a change that is a global simplification.
- gakos 8y agoFair point. Can you share some more detailed examples? Disclaimer: I posted this article originally because of the humor component, but I also think it's a legitimate conversation to have.
- adverbly 8y agoI told this to my girlfriend and explained to her what tau is. She responded that she actually had bought two pies just a few hours ago. Excellent.
- gakos 8y agoSo good. 2 pies = 2 Taus though. Ha!