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A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

roitman.io

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Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#291
post #285
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Cos is an inherently geometric function.

There are many equivalent definitions and many of them do not refer to geometry at all. If you don't want to go through cos you can always define pi as sqrt(6 * sum from 1 to inf 1/n^2).

You can also define it as `3.14159...` just because. Obviously, a π definition entirely divorced from geometry becomes irrelevant to it - instead, in geometry, you'd still use π = circumference/diameter, or π = whatever(cos), and those values would happen to be the same as a non-geometric π, but only if the geometric π is the one from Euclidean geometry.

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another bad way to check for non-coincidences is to use a value like g which changes depending on your location. Pi is the same everywhere in the universe. g on Earth: 9.8 m/s² g on Earth's moon: 1.62 m/s² g on Mars: 3.71 m/s² g on Jupiter: 24.79 m/s² g on Pluto: 0.62 m/s² g on the Sun: 274 m/s² (Jupiter's estimate for g is at the cloud tops, and the Sun's is for the photosphere, as neither body has a solid surface.)

My physics prof said g is actually a vector field. Because the acceleration has a direction and both magnitude and direction vary from point to point.

Absolutely true on astronomical scales.

An unnecessary complication if you're dropping a brick out of a window.

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#294
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern mathematics is more likely than not going to define pi as twice the unique zero of cos between 0 and 2, and cos can be defined via its power series or via the exp function (if you use complex numbers). None of this involves geometry whatsoever.

What do you mean? Cos is an inherently geometric function.

To quote myself:

> cos can be defined via its power series or via the exp function (if you use complex numbers).

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#295
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many equivalent definitions and many of them do not refer to geometry at all. If you don't want to go through cos you can always define pi as sqrt(6 * sum from 1 to inf 1/n^2).

You can also define it as `3.14159...` just because. Obviously, a π definition entirely divorced from geometry becomes irrelevant to it - instead, in geometry, you'd still use π = circumference/diameter, or π = whatever(cos), and those values would happen to be the same as a non-geometric π, but only if the geometric π is the one from Euclidean geometry.

> You can also define it as `3.14159...` just because.

That's not a rigorous definition, though, because it doesn't tell you what those "..." expand to.

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#296
The pendulum equation isn't progress at all, it's just another observation of it? Driving it 'backwards' as it were with known values for the parameters it would determine, and seeing that pi squared is roughly g without having to know the actual values of those constants.

And now I've finished the article, nothing more is really offered. Am I missing something? That doesn't explain it/answer the question at all afaict? All we've done is find an equation that uses both pi and g, which shows again the relationship we started from?

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

32 meters is 35 yards, to within about an eighth of an inch. How's that grab you ?

I wonder if this is related, but imperial measurements with a 5 in the numerator (and a power of two in the denominator) are generally just under a power of two number of millimeters. The reason is fun, and as far as I know, historically unintentional. To convert from 5/(2^n) inches to mm, we multiply by 25.4 mm/in. So we get 5*25.4/(2^n) mm, or 127/(2^n) mm. This is just under (2^7)/(2^n) mm, which simplifies to 2^(…

So the error is 1.6%. Acceptable for everyday hardware I guess.

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree, I thought what he said was very interesting. It never occurred to me that pi might vary, and over a non-flat space I can see what they're saying. I think it's intrinsically interesting simply because it breaks one of my preconceptions, that pi is a constant. Talking about it being 'not very useful' just seems far too casually dismissive.

Pi doesn't vary. The ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle may vary depending on the geometry. Clearly everyone means euclidean space unless specified otherwise. Any other interpretation will only lead to problems, which is why it's not useful. There is really no ambiguity about this in mathematics. Mathematicians still use the pi symbol as a constant when they compute the circumference of a circle in a give…

> Pi doesn't vary. The ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle may vary depending on the geometry.

Can you share some place where Pi isn't defined exclusively as being "the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle"? I have never heard any other definition in my life, and couldn't find any other through the first few Google results

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you change either of the units you can always change the other one to fix the equation again.

But does it work when you use the right Imperial technique?

If I come up with my own measuring unit, let's call it the sneezle (whatever the actual length I assign to it) I will be able to also define a duration unit (say, the snifflebeat) based on the time it takes for a pendulum one sneezle long to complete a full oscillation, and vice versa I can define the sneezle by adjusting the length of a pendulum so that it oscillates in two snifflebeats. Here are the maths:

T = 2π√(l/g)

T/2π = √(l/g)

(T/2π)^2=l/g

g = l/(T/2π)^2

g = l/(T^2/4π^2) = 4π^2xl/T^2

Now substitue T with 2 and l with 1 an you get

g = 4π^2x1/2^2 = π^2

It doesn't matter what the pair of units assigned to T and l are. However, they'll be interrelated.

There is nothing arbitrary, and no coincidences behind g =~ π^2. It just requires to do some history of metrology and some basic maths/physics.

If you want to discuss coincidences, may I suggest you to comment on this remark I made and which hasn't received any attention yet ?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41209612

Re: A wonderful coincidence or an expected connection: why π² ≈ g

#300
You could not have done a worse job explaining it.

This is written for which audience. For a person who doesn't know physics this is a very long and confusing explanation. Explaining that some units depend on others, and the importance of the ability to reproduce the metric system on your own, is much more important than the whole pre-story of length standards.

There are lots of unanswered questions. What was the second defined as? Don't you measure time using a pendulum? Why was the astronomical definition more reliable?

For a person who does know physics you can write a much shorter and clearer explanation eg.:

"For a universal definition of the meter you need a constant that appears in nature, such as gravity. You could measure the distance an object falls in some amount of time, but it is easier to use a pendulum.

Pendulums swing consistently with a period approximately equal to 2pisqrt(string length/gravity). I you were to use pi^2 for gravity, than after the square root the pis would cancel out, leaving T = 2*sqrt(Length). This is useful because a 1 meter pendulum takes 2 seconds to swing back and forth (1 second per swing.)

Clocks at that time were quite accurate, with the second being reproducible from astronomical measurements. So you could take a pendulum, fiddle with it's length until it does exactly one swing every second, and then use the string or stick to measure whatever you wanted.

That was great so they changed gravitational constant so it would equal pi^2 (9.87 m/s^2). (If you decrease the meter, everything will become longer.)

Then they found out that gravity differs along earth's surface and a perfect mathematical pendulum proved to be difficult to reproduce, so they switched to an astronomy based definition based on the size of earth. That turned out to be broken as well, so they held a physical meter long stick in Paris. A few years ago physicists started using the plank constant which is the smallest possible distance you can measure."

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