Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)

tauday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 159 posts

Re: No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)

#41

Post by lutorm »

dieterrams wrote: post #27
lutorm wrote: post #3

Interesting how people equate "I don't like x" with "x is wrong"... If that's the definition of "wrong" that people use in discussions, I see why science has such a hard time getting through to the public.

From the FAQ: "I’m having fun with this, and the tone is occasionally lighthearted" The claim that pi is wrong is a claim about pi's inconsistency and inefficiency as a matter of mathematical language design. These guys aren't dumb enough to confuse this as a claim about formal correctness. Instead, they're playfully co-opting the rhetoric of formal correctness.

It's true that they claim in one specific section that it's "lighthearted". However, that doesn't change the fact that I don't think this is a helpful way of making the argument. Truth and falseness is already being co-opted enough that I don't think anything pushing that trend further should be encouraged. In this case, the "gain" certainly does not outweigh the loss in encouraging this view of "wrong".

Re: No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)

#42

Post by Semiapies »

pyrtsa wrote: post #37
tc wrote: post #2

Perfect; to my lisp startup file was just added: (defconstant tau #.(* 2 pi)) Regarding adoption, I think it's worth pointing out that these sorts of conventions can and do shift within a generation. I recall quite clearly while growing up the convention for indicating years = the year one [1] was B.C. and A.D. It seems like over the past few years we've definitively decided on B.C.E. and C.E. instead [2]. All it rea…

Only there is no year zero, by (that) definition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(year)

Nor are BCE and CE all that commonly used.

Re: No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)

#43

Post by Groxx »

tc wrote: post #2

Perfect; to my lisp startup file was just added: (defconstant tau #.(* 2 pi)) Regarding adoption, I think it's worth pointing out that these sorts of conventions can and do shift within a generation. I recall quite clearly while growing up the convention for indicating years = the year one [1] was B.C. and A.D. It seems like over the past few years we've definitively decided on B.C.E. and C.E. instead [2]. All it rea…

Except BC/AD -> BCE/CE is a label change, not a numbering change, and it's arguably for largely P.C. reasons; conforming to P.C. is the "in" thing. We in America have also changed from Indians to Native Americans to American Indians to Indigenous Peoples to whatever, and N* to Black to Colored to African American to something supposedly unoffensive while still defining the same group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Era

---

edit in response to edits: I too agree with preferring BC/AD, they're the same size and look more different. BCE/CE both end in "CE", and the similarities between "B" and "E" don't help :\ And I see BCE more-ish in recent history books, but not much outside there (though there aren't qualifiers for most things I read, it's all too recent).

I'm voting for positive values == CE and negative values == BCE. They're already numbered that way, just adopt the frickin' sign instead of the suffix! Nearly everything becomes easier, left-to-right hints at relative age prior to even seeing the number, and parsing from a computer standpoint is as easy as to_i().

Re: No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto (Tau Day, 2010)

#46

Post by lutorm »

jerf wrote: post #40
Avshalom wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pi is defined as C/D, the only way to prove it wrong would be to show that C/D isn't a constant in euclidean geometry, which you can't. What they show examples of is that using pi is ill advised.

You're operating under the wrong definition of "wrong". Axioms and definitions simply exist, but we are not therefore obligated to suspend all judgment on which ones are better for some purpose. I can reformulate all of physics to accept the Earth as a constant reference frame. It will be isomorphic to current physics based on being set in inertial reference frames, and therefore every bit as "correct" as conventiona…

No, no, no. Your Earth-centered physics is not wrong. It's perhaps "bad", or "awkward", "clumsy" or "suboptimal", but not wrong. The word wrong should be reserved for factually incorrect statements (unless you are discussing morals), otherwise it's been diluted to meaninglessness.

It's better.

See, you already agree with me. It's not "right", it may be "better" (though I question that fact, too.)

Post reply on HN