5 ms·

I will start using tau exclusively the minute I don't get F's in math for using it.

• joshkaufman 16y ago
  That's why it's a "pedagogical disaster."
  • martinkallstrom 16y ago
    Any pedagogical institution flunking students for labeling and using constants when solving math problems should be burned down and the ground upon where it stood strewn with salt so that life never again will prevail there.
    • techiferous 16y ago
      Speaking of mathematical pedagogical disasters... I taught science and technology at a secondary school for a while and through the process I had to get certified to teach in the state of Virginia. Part of the certification process is passing the math praxis. If I remember correctly, all teachers in the state of Virginia must pass the math praxis I. I was surprised (actually dismayed) at the large number of my colleagues who thought it was challenging or had to take it more than once before passing. Here are some sample questions: http://www.studyguidezone.com/praxis_math.htm http://www.studyguidezone.com/praxis_math.htm My wife (who also got certified to teach in Virginia) just told me that many of her colleagues couldn't pass this simple math test and several had to take it multiple times before passing. She said that some teachers simply couldn't pass it so chose to teach in North Carolina for a while and then move back to Virginia (because after so many years the teaching certification from another state was automatic). tl;dr: The tech leaders of tomorrow will not be from America.
• rudiger 16y ago
  How are you getting Fs for using τ? Just write `Let τ = 2π.` at the top of your papers.
  • tel 16y ago
    Because even at high level math that's pretty annoying. As much as I agree with the philosophical force behind \tau = 2\pi, the conventional force behind rarely having to define or question the definition of \pi is bigger.
    • jacobolus 16y ago
      Have you tried it? It’s really not too bad, unless you’re in some context where τ is expected to mean something else – and those are relatively rare – or unless you’re simultaneously flouting other conventions.
      • tel 16y ago
        Yes, it's honestly super trivial to make the substitution. It's a really minor translation cost on the myriad of formulae that are written involving pi. But if I see "define tau = 2 pi" at the beginning of a paper I'm going to have a hard time taking it seriously. It's got useful pedantic purposes, but frankly it's so trivial at the level of good maths that the only reason anyone would write that is political. And then it's a minor headache. And then mathematical curtesy dictates that you omit excess. — Similarly, why do we write numbers in base 10? It's an arbitrary convention and in many contexts other bases might be strictly beautiful (conceded for argument's sake). I'll just write at the top of my paper that all numerals are written in octal for the sake of beauty.
        • jacobolus 16y ago
          The context of this discussion was graders marking people down on homework assignments, not published journals. You’re right that it’s political. Changing any kind of convention is always political. [By the way, I believe you mean pedagogical rather than pedantic.] — The use of octal or some other number notation system instead of decimal causes a dramatically larger conversion difficulty for unfamiliar readers than the use of τ does. It’s not a comparable distinction. By your logic equating all such choices, no one should ever use a minority notation for anything, even if they think it has substantial benefits. Thankfully, not everyone agrees, and sometimes our notation improves (A couple examples I particularly like are Knuth’s use of the Iverson Bracket in writing sums, and [] and {} notation for Stirling numbers.)