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111 Years Ago, Indiana Almost Legislated Pi
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."
Then again, maybe I'll patent 22/7 as a good way to approximate pi. I heard that intellectual property is all the rage nowadays.
Introduced by Record
IN THE SENATE
Read first time and referred to
committee on Temperance, February 11th, 1897
Reported favorable February 12th, 1897
Read second time and indefinitely postponed February 12, 1897
sounds to me like they just never got a Round Tuit
There was an attempt to outlaw i and it's use in mathematical equations. Lawmakers who objected to its use complained that it wasn't real and their constituents required too much imagination to accept it.
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
"the American Mathematical Monthly, the leading exponent of mathematical thought in this country."
Nice word choice
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
"It is impossible to compute the area of a circle on the diameter as the linear unit without trespassing upon the area outside of the circle to the extent of including one-fifth more area than is contained within the circle's circumference, because the square on the diameter produces the side of a square which equals nine when the arc of ninety degrees equals eight."
Not that other countrys' are any better, I suppose
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Ok, please let me know how to accurately express one divided into three equally. I have been stuck using 1/3 far too long.
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
This happened 111.19 years ago, you must remember to include the leap years.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
One can only assume the proposal was made by Bloody Stupid Johnson.
It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.
Here you go.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
1897, c'mon slashdot this really is old news!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Apparently, the bill's main purpose wasn't to establish a value of Pi, but to provide a method to square the circle. Doubly retarded! Also, why do we need LEGISLATION of squaring the circle? What political significance does this hold, other than the fact that politicians can't math?
I hope we read this in about 100 years.... About 100 years ago, the Dover Pennsylvania school board very nearly succeeded in enforcing 'introducing a new scientific truth,' that would have erroneously established intelligent design as a rational alternative to evolution. The story explaining the rationale behind the idiocy is best described by the federal judge who prevented the school board from ....
You just know it doesn't make sense.
Bitter and proud of it.
In Soviet Russia, transcendental irrationality legislates you !
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
4 / 1.25 = 3.2
Perhaps in another century or so they'll be able to decide on a time-zone.
In scientific notation, you count the significant digits. All of the numbers have one (1) significant digit Not quite. "10 cubits" and "30 cubits" might be to either one or two significant figures; since it doesn't specify, there no way of telling which. If they had they been given in scientific notation, as either, e.g., "3*10^1" or "3.0*10^1", then you're right, that would have been one and two s.f. respectively; but "30 cubits" is ambiguous.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Interestingly, however, if you pick a particular circle, the ratio actually has a 100% probability of being irrational, rather than rational. Informally, this is because the irrationals are so much 'denser' than the rationals (using the colloquial rather than the topological meaning of dense). A proper proof follows from the fact that the rationals have Lebesgue measure 0; i.e. they can all be enclosed in a set of intervals on the real line, the sum of the lengths of which can be made as small as you like.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
I'd like to file a motion that we observe this 111th anniversary as the centennial. The number 100 is more convenient and aesthetically pleasing.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
My favorite part of the bill is the final line, which reads:
And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as insolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.
This, along with the rest of the math in the bill, makes it clear that the authors were the sort that only "believe" in rational numbers. Of course, by that time mathematicians already had a pretty good hold on the rest of the real numbers, and there wasn't any mystery at all about the existence of numbers that weren't the ration of two integers. The only real mystery here is why they preferred the approximation 3.2 rather than 3.1. Not that either is good enough for engineers, who routinely used 3 places as the minimal precision if you don't want to be laughed out of the room.
One of my favorite bits of mathematical humor is the many cases where they have taken criticisms and turned them into terminology. Thus, when it was realized that numbers like e and pi couldn't be written as ratios of integers, there were a lot of dummies who didn't accept this, and attacked the rationality of the people who did. The response of mathematicians was to say, in essence, "Hey, they call us irrational; that's a good word. Let's call the numbers that our critics believe in as 'rational', and the numbers that they don't believe in as 'irrational'. They'll be happy, and we'll have handy words for talking about these two kinds of numbers."
It happened again when people started talking about square roots of negative numbers (and engineers found practical uses for them in the real world). There were the usual criticisms, to the effect that negative numbers don't have square roots, and it's stupid to talk about things that don't exist. The natural (;-) reaction of the mathematicians was to first be bemused by the very idea that any kind of numbers have any sort of real existence. Then they adopted the critics' words as terminology, with 'real' numbers the sort that the critics accepted, and 'imaginary' numbers the kind that produced negative numbers when multiplied by themselves. That must have really played with the critics' minds. "Oh, you want to talk about real numbers; that's room 12A, just along the corridor. We're talking about imaginary numbers here. Stupid git."
Of course, there's the even more basic concept of 'natural' numbers, i.e., positive integers. It's clear from most most languages' words for numbers that most people historically have only dealt with this sort of number. Even today, many US high-school kids have a certain resistance to the idea that they have to learn about fractions, which strike them as 'unnatural' and pointless. So mathematicians adopted 'natural' as a subtle jab at the irrational attitude of the ignorant masses.
At least this bill's authors had enough understanding to accept rational numbers as real, though they classified irrational numbers like pi as "insolvable mysteries". It is sad (and funny) that as late as 1897 this sort of ignorance could actually make an appearance in a legislative body and apparently be taken as anything but a lame joke.
There have been other bills like this in the past, though as far as I've read, none of them has ever actually been passed, or even voted on. Anyone know of a case where one reached a vote?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Concerned readers of the rather lurid tale above may rest assured that its scandalous contents are entirely false.
Mr. Pi is a well known and well respected number in the mathematical community, who despite its irrational tendencies, has won the hearts of all decent magnitudes with its transcendental nature. A nature one might add, which intrinsically prevents it from appearing at the roots of any finite order equation, let alone one of only seventeenth order.
Mr. Pi is a good friend to many highly respected mathematical families such as the Trigonometric Functions and the Elliptic Functions. It is also known for its generous community work, appearing in many Geometrical texts and Physics equations, and in general is known far and wide for not holding itself above the common constant, despite its fame and status.
Mr. Pi has been known for years as a wonderful role model and teacher for polynomials of a small degree, particularly for second order equations. It has opened up worlds of possibility and inspired these young equations for many years, and it would be a great shame if this false, cruel and libelous fiction caused an end to those efforts.
I urge readers to reject and condemn this utterly false, malicious and libelous insult upon a good member of the mathematical community. We must not abandon the rigor and scruple that our community is renowned for, and succumb to emotive reasoning. The reader may be assured that however rational their coefficients, seventeenth order equations are known to come across irrational roots, of any multiplicity, all by themselves!
May the Maths Be with you!
I don't mind giving ownership of Pi to some clever patent lawyer. But no sneaking using a mathematical symbol. We need to know the EXACT value they want to patent. So they would first have to write down ALL the digits before I would be willing to hand over the patent.
In fact, I propose that we begin this process right now. Something as widely used as Pi is sure to bring in billions. We need to get ALL the lawyers busy writing down the digits of Pi immediately.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I think you may mean Alabama instead of Missouri. And it didn't happen.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
It's also a well-known bit of historical legislative foolishness often cited to demonstrate the kind of bad decisions possible in a representative system of government. In an election year, it's a valuable reminder of how we need to keep a close eye on these people.
Considering the repeated movements to introduce other bits of absurdity into school curricula (ID, anyone?) it's well worth talking about.
And the brethren went away edified.