Simple and relevant! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7vhMMXagQ
I'm sold. Especially on Euler's equation.
Happy Tau Day
11–20 of 54 posts
Re: Happy Tau Day
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't solve anything, but it makes certain formulae and relationships more intuitive. Have you read the Tau Manifesto?
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.
The intended beneficiaries would be kids learning basic math, not mathematicians.
Re: Happy Tau Day
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't solve anything, but it makes certain formulae and relationships more intuitive. Have you read the Tau Manifesto?
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.
Re: Happy Tau Day
#14I forgot how awesome geometry was. Anyone know of any courses (online) that each geometry through functional languages (or maybe even vice-versa)?
Re: Happy Tau Day
#15Earlier 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.
The intended beneficiaries would be kids learning basic math, not mathematicians.
The right sentiment, but I don't fully agree with this.
There are a lot of people who aren't kids, aren't mathematicians, but have to deal with maths all the time. In fact, our own field of Computer Science has a lot of math.
Now, I can't speak as a real mathematician (though I know more maths than most people), but I can definitely speak as a CS major - learning to use radians was never natural for me, and it is the basis of most of calculus. Had I learned it using Tau, I'm guessing it wouldn't have even been an issue. It wouldn't even be something I have to "learn". It just makes sense - one half of a circle is one half Tau.
Re: Happy Tau Day
#16If it's not broken, don't fix it. I don't see pi broken as it has been used for _centuries_. Why should we change it all of a sudden? To signify that we're into a new era? The Tau era?
Why did we move from Roman Numerals or other systems of writing down numbers, to the current numerals we use today? Simple - they make lots of things easier.
Now, no one is claiming that Tau vs. Pi is even close to the same level of importance. But it makes some things just that much easier.
Re: Happy Tau Day
#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.)
Re: Happy Tau Day
#18The 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 the prime counting function, but there it's a function, which clears up the otherwise ambiguous notation. Furthermore these abuses of notation are generally considered a bad thing, something we try to avoid.
As for the intuitiveness of such deep results as Stirling's formula and the even values of the Riemann zeta: this is to concern oneself with the upholstery on the Space Shuttle.
If you want a new pi symbol, might I suggest the variant pi described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_%28letter%29 -- though I'm afraid this is all a waste of time and energy.
Re: Happy Tau Day
#19> Not all fans of maths agree, however, and pi's rich history means it will be a difficult number to unseat.
This statement is never supported (the fan part). Bad BBC, bad!
Re: Happy Tau Day
#20The earliest example I've seen of 2π is in a 1763 letter from Thomas Bayes (the paper that appeared in the Royal Society proceedings directly after the one that's famous). He used c for the circumference of a circle whose radius is unity.
If you've ever used Stirling's approximation, this is the paper that first points out that it's a divergent series.
Scan of original (it's also on JSTOR): http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/letter.pdf
With modern typesetting and an explanation: http://www.stat.ucla.edu/history/letter.pdf
(I don't seriously think we should change from pi to tau.)