The Life (And Death) Of Pi

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley

NMSR reports:

Huntsville-- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law Friday [March 30, 2012] redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to its so-called "Biblical Value" of exactly three was introduced without fanfare by State Senator Shadrack McGill (R-8th District, Jackson County), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Robert Bentley, who emphasized the Biblical reasons for the change in value, says he will sign it into law on Thursday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from the University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisely defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".

"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it," said McGill. "The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass."

McGill, the article reports, called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing an exact answer could harm students' self-esteem. "We need to return to some absolutes in our society," he said, "the Bible does not say that the font was thirty-something cubits. Plain reading says thirty cubits. Period."

Governor Bentley is expected to have a signing ceremony for the bill on Thursday in Montgomery at which former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is expected to give an invocation. Moore's office today stated that the change in the value of pi to the Biblical value was a good, first, legislative step toward the Rapture, toward making the crooked straight and rough places plane.

Haven't these people done enough already? Is nothing sacrosanct? Who will stand up for the missing .14159+?

Alabama Devalues Pi

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley

NMSR reports:

Huntsville-- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law Friday [March 30, 2012] redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to its so-called "Biblical Value" of exactly three was introduced without fanfare by State Senator Shadrack McGill (R-8th District, Jackson County), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Robert Bentley, who emphasized the Biblical reasons for the change in value, says he will sign it into law on Thursday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from the University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisely defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".

"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it," said McGill. "The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass."

McGill, the article reports, called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing an exact answer could harm students' self-esteem. "We need to return to some absolutes in our society," he said, "the Bible does not say that the font was thirty-something cubits. Plain reading says thirty cubits. Period."

Governor Bentley is expected to have a signing ceremony for the bill on Thursday in Montgomery at which former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is expected to give an invocation. Moore's office today stated that the change in the value of pi to the Biblical value was a good, first, legislative step toward the Rapture, toward making the crooked straight and rough places plane.

Haven't these people done enough already? Is nothing sacrosanct? Who will stand up for the missing .14159+?

The Life Of Pi

I heard on the radio recently that Daniel Tammet holds the world's record for reciting from memory the digits in pi:

Tammet holds the European record for reciting pi from memory to 22,514 digits in five hours and nine minutes.

I have no idea whether the world record is different from the European or the Asian or American record. And I have no idea what adjective best describes this kind of achievement. Is there an adjective that combines "gigantic" with "essentially meaningless?"

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would want to recite the values of pi to 22,514 figures, ever, much less why anyone would choose to do this from memory. "Because I can" hardly seems an adequate explanation. However, the idea of a championship tournament of people who were reciters of pi from memory utterly boggles and excites me. Imagine, if you will the pi recitation training camp, the pi recitation workouts, the rehearsals, the endorsements. Imagine, if you will, reporters from the Memory Channel and their interviews with the contestants. The touts: "The champ ain't talkin with the press right now, he's doin his rote work, and then he's gonna take a nap. Come back tomorrow."

Alabama Legislature Devalues Pi

NMSR reports:

NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city [Huntsville] are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law Friday [March 28, 2008] redefining pi, a mathematical constant used in the aerospace industry. The bill to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare by Leonard Lee Lawson (R, Crossville), and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group. Governor Bob Riley, who emphasized the Biblical reasons for the change in value, says he will sign it into law on Thursday.

The law took the state's engineering community by surprise. "It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi," said Marshall Bergman, a manager at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. According to Bergman, pi is a Greek letter that signifies the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is often used by engineers to calculate missile trajectories.

Prof. Kim Johanson, a mathematician from University of Alabama, said that pi is a universal constant, and cannot arbitrarily be changed by lawmakers. Johanson explained that pi is an irrational number, which means that it has an infinite number of digits after the decimal point and can never be known exactly. Nevertheless, she said, pi is precisely defined by mathematics to be "3.14159, plus as many more digits as you have time to calculate".

"I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it," said Lawson. "The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon's Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass."

Lawson, the article says, called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing an exact answer could harm students' self-esteem. "We need to return to some absolutes in our society," he said, "the Bible does not say that the font was thirty-something cubits. Plain reading says thirty cubits. Period."

Governor Riley is expected to have a signing ceremony for the bill on Thursday in Montgomery at which former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore is expected to give an invocation. Moore's office today stated that the change in the value of pi to the Biblical value was a good, first, legislative step toward the Rapture, toward making the crooked straight and rough places plane.

Haven't these people done enough already? Is nothing sacrosanct? Who will stand up for the missing .14159+?