4 ms·
Huh. Section 5.1 (one of the new ones) is presented as this new epiphany about hyperspheres and tau, but I made a post back in 2010 about this ( http://www.bla
by blahedo 14y ago
Huh. Section 5.1 (one of the new ones) is presented as this new epiphany about hyperspheres and tau, but I made a post back in 2010 about this ( http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001083.html http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001083.html ), emailed Hartl at the time, and he said he'd already thought of that. Still, cool to see that my observation was worth (eventually) including in the manifesto itself. (He did elaborate on the idea considerably, of course.) ;)
- mhartl 14y agoWhen I said I'd already thought of it, I was referring to the general observation that n-sphere volumes support tau, not pi. You can find my original comments, dating from July 2010, at http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=61958 http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=61958. The "epiphany" refers to the specific realization that there are three families of constants, and in particular that pi is not a member of the family of volume constants but rather is part of a useless family of its own. In any case, you certainly deserve mention, so I've added you to the acknowledgments. Thanks!
- blahedo 14y agoNifty! I wasn't trolling for recognition so much as being puzzled why this was billed as a new epiphany---that makes sense though. I love the idea of recasting the presentation from "list of complex formulae for area and volume" to "sequence of constants expressing ratios".
- mhartl 14y agoI know you weren't trolling, but I'm a strong believer in giving credit where credit is due. Thanks again for your comments!