Oolite Bulletins

For those who don't like pi. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13906169

OK, so the area of a circle is:

pi * r * r

are the tau-ists suggesting:

1/2 tau * r * r

or the volume of a sphere:

4/3 * pi * r * r * r

becomes

2/3 * tau * r * r * r

Oh yes, that's so much more convenient...

Tau-ist = somebody with nothing better to do.

DaddyHoggy wrote:

OK, so the area of a circle is:
pi * r * r
are the tau-ists suggesting:
1/2 tau * r * r
or the volume of a sphere:
4/3 * pi * r * r * r
becomes
2/3 * tau * r * r * r
Oh yes, that's so much more convenient...
Tau-ist = somebody with nothing better to do.

I think the argument was that when you use radians and more complex formulas Tau makes it simpler. (No, I have not tested anything and I don't intend to)
I tend to favour the underdog, so go Tau. (Just because I can, and for no other sensible reason)

Mmmmm, did somebody say Pie?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Oh yes, that's so much more convenient...

The actual Tau Manifesto is really quite interesting (and the additional /2 in the circular area formula has an arguable pedagogical benefit). Its biggest weakness, as I see it, is that it mentions the advantage of π radians in calculus, and then conveniently fails to mention the power-of-two scale factors that will be needed if you use τ radians instead.

Smivs wrote:

Mmmmm, did somebody say Pie?

Yup! Pumpkin

Now lets have a musical accompaniment to this discussion shall we, while the oven heats up.

Smivs wrote:

Mmmmm, did somebody say Pie?

Sometimes making a good pie requires that one research and experiment with better ingredents in other baked confections before applying that knowledge to the pie in question.

I was forced to learn Pi to 20 decimal places at school. I can't unlearn it now, even if I wanted to!

Cheers,

Drew.

i rather like the fact that angles in radians are about equal to their sinus and tangens if the angle is small enough. (the way to put it is "within adequate tollerance", depending on context) it does help me in my line of work every so often.
for that reason, i always saw radians as the "natural unit" for angles