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Happy Tau Day

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Happy Tau Day

#31

Post by speckledjim »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #13
speckledjim wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More intuitive ? If you're phased by the odd 2 or 1/2 here or there in maths, it's probably not the right discipline for you. Far more important step for mathematicians would be to switch from base 10 to something more useful like base 8.

Again, I ask: have you read the Tau Manifesto? If not, I suggest you do that, as it makes the case there much more clearly than I could here. The point being: for children learning the basics, the odd 2 or 1/2 here and there masks the underlying relationships. But don't take my word for it-- read the manifesto.

I read it a few years ago. I disagree. It's like saying removing a seldom used letter from the alphabet would mean kids learn to spell better.

The whole point of learning is to learn to read things and understand them. That means looking behind 'fluff' like 2, or 1/2, and understanding the concepts.

Re: Happy Tau Day

#32

Post by TheOnly92 »

jerf wrote: post #28
TheOnly92 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, if there's proof that the changes from Pi to Tau will accelerate technological advancement even by 0.01%, I'll totally support it. The fact is that making things easier doesn't necessarily mean improvement.

"The fact is that making things easier doesn't necessarily mean improvement." Untrue, and if you're a programmer you ought to know better. Making something that works the exact same way, only easier, is definitely an improvement. Now it takes less of your finite mental reserves to accomplish a task, and you can now go further in the same amount of time. Making something that abstracts away some things and makes the r…

Okay, I failed to properly address "improvement". By "improvement" I mean the time required to develop something new. Of course everything improves, simply because it's built on top of the base of an older version.

A simple example, it took months to write a simple browser with a little less features than the browsers available during the Win 9x era. Does it take weeks now? I doubt so.

Ok, to put it more simply, what I meant was improvement in the time required not as in the thing that was produced. Uh, get what I mean?

Re: Happy Tau Day

#33

Post by scythe »

ignifero wrote: post #29
scythe wrote: post #18

The Greek letter tau is already used to refer to the period of an oscillation, the time constant of a decay interval (these are intimately related), plus plenty of other stuff. There really aren't any Greek letters left that aren't used for a million things already. tau-as-time-constant is the standard use for the thing, and the confusion with torque and natural temperature is bad enough as it is. Yes, pi shows up as…

Not to mention the tau neutrino. But the bigger question is why would one want to do that?

It is not an exercise worth ignoring: I had also once thought that pi should be replaced.

Slightly different motivation, though, as it seemed to me that pi/2 was really more interesting, and anyway it is really much easier to write multiplication than fractions when you run into a discrepancy. Here the roots of the sine are at even multiples and the roots of the cosine are at odd multiples, and e^(i pi/2) = i is more interesting than the previous incarnations of the Euler formula.

The thing is that the important parts of these formulae are the way they are derived and the structure they represent, not their appearance on a sheet of paper. If you can understand what relates the zeta function at even numbers to the ratio of a circle's radius and circumference, it really does not matter if you choose to represent this relation with a drawing of an elephant.

Re: Happy Tau Day

#34

Post by vessenes »

The most compelling argument for me in using tau, (and I have started trying to think in tau when it comes up) is the radians argument: one quarter of a circle is tau/4, or pi / 8, you pick.

I am certain my kids will have an easier time remembering tau/4, as I do myself.

The other compelling thing for me came from remembering just how many integrals from 0 to 2pi I wrote over my freshman complex analysis class. A lot. Less notation is always nice; having tau represent the entire circle just makes a lot of sense!

Re: Happy Tau Day

#36

Post by ignifero »

scythe wrote: post #33
ignifero wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention the tau neutrino. But the bigger question is why would one want to do that?

It is not an exercise worth ignoring: I had also once thought that pi should be replaced. Slightly different motivation, though, as it seemed to me that pi/2 was really more interesting, and anyway it is really much easier to write multiplication than fractions when you run into a discrepancy. Here the roots of the sine are at even multiples and the roots of the cosine are at odd multiples, and e^(i pi/2) = i is more…

You got a good case with pi/2, it's truly useful, as it represents the angle between 3d axes, the boundaries of the tangent and inverse trigonometric functions, the monotonic regions of cosine and sine etc. It will even make spherical coordinates easier to visualize mentally. (It will also make a two-digit number, 16, a common resident in lots of formulas). I vouch for it, and i call for a move to name it, confusingly, pi-bar

Re: Happy Tau Day

#38

Post by mhartl »

ignifero wrote: post #30
imurray wrote: post #17

"What Tau Sounds Like" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3174T-3-59Q (Yes, we know that Tau doesn't really sound like anything, but this was fun and better than I expected.)

on a related note, tau in greek is pronounced ˈtaff

And pi in Greek is pronounced 'pee'. Still lots of pun potential, but maybe not the kind you'd want. ;-)

Re: Happy Tau Day

#39

Post by bhousel »

ignifero wrote: post #29
scythe wrote: post #18

The Greek letter tau is already used to refer to the period of an oscillation, the time constant of a decay interval (these are intimately related), plus plenty of other stuff. There really aren't any Greek letters left that aren't used for a million things already. tau-as-time-constant is the standard use for the thing, and the confusion with torque and natural temperature is bad enough as it is. Yes, pi shows up as…

Not to mention the tau neutrino. But the bigger question is why would one want to do that?

All numbers are divisible by 2, in that sense..

Re: Happy Tau Day

#40

Post by pavel_lishin »

imurray wrote: post #17

"What Tau Sounds Like" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3174T-3-59Q (Yes, we know that Tau doesn't really sound like anything, but this was fun and better than I expected.)

I don't understand when the chords come into play - I don't understand the rules.

But seems like you could generate nice, non-repeating elevator music by hooking something up to an RNG or PRNG, and never hear the same song in the elevator twice.

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