111 Years Ago, Indiana Almost Legislated Pi

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 5, 2008 @10:19PM from the squaring-the-circle dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "On February 5, 1897, 111 years ago today, the Indiana legislature very nearly passed a bill 'introducing a new mathematical truth,' that would have erroneously established pi as the ratio 'five-fourths to four' or 3.2. The story explaining the rationale behind the bill and how they were prevented from legislating it when a real mathematician intervened is quite interesting, because the man who discovered the 'new mathematical truth' wanted to charge royalties, which could have made pi the first form of irrational property."

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Re:Blashphemy ! by gbarta · 2008-02-05 23:58 · Score: 0, Redundant

Well, it kinda does. Here is the reference. It says:
He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.
Not exactly a lesson in euclidean geometry, but not the word of an infallible being either.