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Some do, that's how I learned them. edit: I still think the most confusing thing about radians when learning them is the 2 pi. This seems so arbitrary. We no
by Coincoin 13y ago
Some do, that's how I learned them.
edit: I still think the most confusing thing about radians when learning them is the 2 pi. This seems so arbitrary.
We now use Tau at work and it makes everything easier to understand.
- srl 13y agoYou use τ where you work? Where do you work (in general terms)?
- RogerL 13y agoWhy arbitrary? C=2pi*r. It's degrees that are arbitrary.
- sp332 13y agoC = tau * r. Why divide the circle in half?
- alayne 13y agoC = pi * D
- backlava 13y agowhere D = 2r
- ccleve 13y agoI prefer "pau". http://xkcd.com/1292/ http://xkcd.com/1292/
- Double_Cast 13y agolol. I always wonder how people find these things. Incidentally, I recently read an article about how the creators of The Simpsons actually held math degrees. They hid mathematical easter-eggs all over their episodes. One gag was a "solution" to Fermat's last theorem where 1782^12 + 1841^12 = 1922^12. It's valid up to like, the twelfth significant digit.
- iagooar 13y agoIt's even more funny when you know that "pau", in Catalan, means "peace".
- rtkwe 13y agoA = 2taur^2. Why divide the circle in half? The early use of pi was calculating area and it was derived based on that. At least as far as history can tell us. Records are a little sketchy that far back.
- shawnz 13y agoThe argument in favour of tau in the formula for the area of a circle is this: To find the area of a circle with radius r, you integrate the circumference of every circle with radius between 0 and r. The integral of tau*r with respect to r is 1/2 tau r^2. Since 1/2 ax^2 is such a common form when dealing with integrals, it can be easier to remember this way.
- rtkwe 13y agoThat's a weak argument. Integrating 2a * x is also insanely common in dealing with integrals. And really if you're deriving the area of a circle and integrating 2pi * r gives you pause you're not on a good road to begin with and removing a 2 from some equations isn't going to help much. edit: forgot that * would make everything italicized.
- est 13y agoGood. Now try sphere surface.
- rtkwe 13y agoSure... Sphere surface area: 4pi * r^2 Sphere volume: (4/3) * pi * r^3 Both would still have a coefficient if tau replaced pi...
- RogerL 13y agoYou aren't diving the circle in half, you are using the radius. Radius vs arc length makes perfect sense; diameter vs arc length doesn't.
- yen223 13y agoWhich is why tau is a better constant to use than pi.
- madengr 13y agoThink of it as radiUS and radiAN, the AN being angle. Since there is PI angle in a radius, there has to be 2PI in a diameter since d=2r.
- shurcooL 13y ago> Since there is PI angle in a radius The only part that doesn't make sense.
- Double_Cast 13y agoHis comment took me a while to parse too. The way I ultimately interpreted his comment was "Since 1(d) = 2(r), it's only natural that 1(rotation) = 2(PI radians)". Which is ironic. I.e. the inequality between the coefficients is actually the tau-ists' primary argument against pi. Also, I don't know how it's relevant to its parent comment, which was about "1 rotation being defined as 360 degrees" being arbitrary.
- madengr 13y agoThe 360 isn't arbitrary, rather boils down to 60 arc-minutes and 60 arc-seconds, which of course is 3600 arc-seconds in circle. Where the 60 comes from: http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/65468.html http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/65468.html Wouldn't surprise me if the minutes and seconds relates to navigation time in the past.