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60 Comments
- humanerror, on 07/23/2008, -3/+24You can't change it now! I already spent months memorizing 3.14159..uh, two.. six... uhhmm okay change it.
- fas2, on 07/23/2008, -1/+16But then the world's most beautiful formula will not be perfect anymore: exp(i pi) + 1 = 0. It contains 5 fundamental constants (e, i, pi, 1, 0) and the two axiomatic field operators over the complex numbers: addition and multiplication.
- cardshark69, on 07/23/2008, -2/+14∫(2πr)dr =πr^2 (where c is known to be 0 for all you pedants)
- WeeBull, on 07/23/2008, -0/+10Doesn't help that the article writer doesn't actually understand what's being discussed.
The discussion is because lot's of formulae use 2pi, or multiples and powers of 2pi, shouldn't we have a constant defined with that value. e.g. pipi (for want of a better name) = 2pi. It would remove a lot of constants from our maths and science formulae.
Instead he goes on about how he should have been taught things like pi*D instead 2pi*r. That doesn't change the constant. What's being asked is "should the formula for the circumference of a circle be pipi*r?". The down side is that it makes the area of a circle (pipi*r*r)/2. - LucasVB, on 07/23/2008, -1/+9See also: Robert Palais' "Pi is Wrong!" http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.pdf
- jlubawy, on 07/23/2008, -3/+11wow that guys that posted the million digits of pi in the comments is a douche
- fas2, on 07/23/2008, -0/+7I see what you mean, but the beauty of the formula lies in the fact that the two operations (*, +) are axiomatic field operators and 0 and 1 are the axiomatic neutral elements of those two operations. In this regard (and in every other actually), 2 is no fundamental constant. It uglifies the otherwise perfect formula :)
- aggies11, on 07/23/2008, -0/+7That's because "pie" is delicious, while "pee" is just gross.
- mbw234, on 07/23/2008, -0/+6Well, if A = 2pi, then e^{i A} = 1, which can be written as e^{i A} - 1 = 0.
So, if pi was really equal to to 2pi we could still write Euler's formula to have the constants 0, 1, pi, e, i. It's even a little better now as it has -1. - dupeduperson, on 07/23/2008, -0/+6My favorite appearance of pi is in the "random walk". Basically if you walk a random distance in a random direction your average displacement (after so many iterations) has a pi in it.
- loquax, on 07/23/2008, -0/+6One of the things lacking in this discussion is why the culture of the Greeks probably favored the diameter over the radius. For the Greek mind, the division of things into halves-(think Zeno's paradox of the arrow that never hits) was a constant fascination.
- humanerror, on 07/23/2008, -2/+7Get that moon language out of here, vile wizard!
- Origin415, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Or the probability two numbers are relatively prime... (6/pi^2)
Or the sum of the series' 1/n^k for k>1...
etc - sxreader, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5pi contains pretty much any sequence of number, somewhere, so why are you surprised?
- dakotatypes, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4It could be argued that it is even more beautiful in that case. Imagine there is a symbol for 2pi. I would suggest a unit circle with a radius from (0,0) to (1,0). Since this character doesn't exist in ascii here I will use @. Euler's formula becomes
e^(i@/2) + 1 = 0
or e^{frac{twopi}{2} i} + 1 = 0 in LaTeX
Therefore you now have *six* fundamental constants (e, i, twopi, 0, 1, 2) and the field operations, plus the implied existence of inverses. - bcstereotype, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4Fascinating stuff. Dugg.
- futur4m4, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4π is exactly three!
- Professor Frink - TheKeithD, on 07/23/2008, -1/+5Too complicated, send it back.
- snurfle, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4If pi is truly infinite and non-repeating, then somewhere in there will be a sequence that exactly matches my OGG copy of "Stairway to Heaven."
Call the RIAA right away before this news leaks... - Napiertt, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4After the 500,000 digit in pi, the following sequence occurs: 10101020202012345678910. Did anyone else catch that? Clearly a hidden code left by the designers on the universe. Wow!
- blackanode, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Really kind makes me think when I saved that it was just under a mb in rtf format.
- Icetype, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Where was that?
- JakeyG14, on 07/23/2008, -1/+4It's Pi. 2 Pi may come up more in physics but at the end of the day it's still a multiple of a fundamental, non-terminating decimal number. The last sentence in the article reiterates more elegantly what I'm trying to say; if Pi is like h (Planck's constant), then 2 Pi is like ℏ, the same number as h but just multiplied by something else (the reciprocal of 2 Pi haha).
- geobay, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Most likely your browser doesn't like pi to a million places...
- Nitrodist88, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Was about to post the same thing. Congrats to you, sir.
- stklaw, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Makes me wonder what you do with your free time.
- ShoesChrist, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I'd like to read it, but it seems to freeze when I open it o.O
- futur4m4, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Dugg for saying "uglifies" lol
- Fitness03, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2So how come when I copy your little number there and paste it into the find bar in firefox and search for it on the article linked in this page does it not seem to appear, considering there is a comment that has pi with 1,000,000 decimals or something ridiculous?
- Icetype, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Lets use a new character for 2pi.. how about: 元
- innocentsinner, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Why? P.
- zxjams, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Why even bother? When is the last time you heard someone pronounce β as "veeta", or μ as "mee"? Even δ is pronounced like TH in our word "the" in modern Greek (most of the time).
To get technical about it, Brits pronounce θ correctly. - thylacine222, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Searchstart: 12 The string 123456789 did not occur in the first 200000000 digits of pi after position 0.
(Sorry! Don't give up, Pi contains lots of other cool strings.)
according to http://www.angio.net/pi/piquery - RogueMountie, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1If you think that's something, check out pi in base 13. It's full of all kinds of hidden messages. Left by SATAN!
- arjie, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2Interesting, but cosmetic mainly, non?
- dakotatypes, on 08/20/2008, -0/+1I'm a little late in this reply, but I've got to take up for my homie.
By your reasoning, e and pi shouldn't be there either, they don't have anything to do with the fundamental properties of a field.
"In this regard (and in every other actually), 2 is no fundamental constant."
Two is
* the first prime and the only even one (hence making it very odd! oh ho ho bad math joke!)
* the least nonnegative integer whose square root is irrational
* the least number of characters necessary for a place value system
* the cardinality of the trivial field (oh snap!)
* the reason the fastest integer search is called 'binary search'
* just awesome. - insanebrain, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1that' because the new IE can't think outside of the box ;)
- Nicoon, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Was just about to post the same thing. I guess you beat me to it, Lucas ;)
- sammydeath, on 07/25/2008, -0/+1i thought u was talking bout the film pi, if there was a second moive that would be sweet!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/
im not even a geek and thought it was amazing - thebeebs, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Same problem here
- fas2, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1How is -1 better than +1?
- cinch123, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Between this and the article about datacenter heat, there are some good quality articles on the front page today.
- Nicoon, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1There's already a symbol for 2pi. It's basically like the pi symbol but with three legs instead of two.
- roddack, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2I vote CAKE!
- JakeyG14, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Dude, well it's not an integer multiple (which is what most people assume when you say "multiple"), also look up "common factor".
- Napiertt, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0Cool search page
- fmorel90, on 10/06/2008, -1/+1you mean what you copied and pasted?
- 23bpg, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0Link to referenced article: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/32679
- rohan1234, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1At the end of the day, pi is still a multiple of 2pi, a fundamental, non-terminating decimal number.
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Show 51 - 61 of 61 discussions
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