General/Off-topic |
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PI constant simplified
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1. |
31 Mar 2009 Tue 09:45 pm |
Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi
By April Holiday
The Associalized Press
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law yesterday [March 30, 2009] 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 Guy Hunt says he will sign it into law on Wednesday.
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 (p) 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 called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the 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."
Science supports Lawson, explains Russell Humbleys, a propulsion technician at the Marshall Spaceflight Center who testified in support of the bill before the legislature in Montgomery on Monday. "Pi is merely an artifact of Euclidean geometry." Humbleys is working on a theory which he says will prove that pi is determined by the geometry of three-dimensional space, which is assumed by physicists to be "isotropic", or the same in all directions.
"There are other geometries, and pi is different in every one of them," says Humbleys. Scientists have arbitrarily assumed that space is Euclidean, he says. He points out that a circle drawn on a spherical surface has a different value for the ratio of circumference to diameter. "Anyone with a compass, flexible ruler, and globe can see for themselves," suggests Humbleys, "its not exactly rocket science."
Roger Learned, a Solomon Society member who was in Montgomery to support the bill, agrees. He said that pi is nothing more than an assumption by the mathematicians and engineers who were there to argue against the bill. "These nabobs waltzed into the capital with an arrogance that was breathtaking," Learned said. "Their prefatorial deficit resulted in a polemical stance at absolute contraposition to the legislature´s puissance."
Some education experts believe that the legislation will affect the way math is taught to Alabama´s children. One member of the state school board, Lily Ponja, is anxious to get the new value of pi into the state´s math textbooks, but thinks that the old value should be retained as an alternative. She said, "As far as I am concerned, the value of pi is only a theory, and we should be open to all interpretations." She looks forward to students having the freedom to decide for themselves what value pi should have.
Robert S. Dietz, a professor at Arizona State University who has followed the controversy, wrote that this is not the first time a state legislature has attempted to redefine the value of pi. A legislator in the state of Indiana unsuccessfully attempted to have that state set the value of pi to three. According to Dietz, the lawmaker was exasperated by the calculations of a mathematician who carried pi to four hundred decimal places and still could not achieve a rational number.
Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between traditional values supporters and the technical elite. Solomon Society member Lawson agrees. "We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three."
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31 Mar 2009 Tue 09:46 pm |
"We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three."
Every day my opinion of religion is confirmed deeper
Edited (3/31/2009) by TheAenigma
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31 Mar 2009 Tue 10:20 pm |
Every day my opinion of religion is confirmed deeper
hahaha...you´ve gotta admit that this whole arguement over pi is just a bit rediculous...and that they are even trying to make it Biblical is even more rediculous!
"We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three."
I´d say her arguement is rather weak! Stating that Solomon´s temple was "round" in compass isn´t an exact measurement...round isn´t the same as saying exact circle.
Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between traditional values supporters and the technical elite.
Aren´t there more important things to argue about? A national battle over pi?? Seriously... come-on, maybe someone needs to get a life!!
Edited (3/31/2009) by Kiara
[I wanted to add more to my statement.]
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31 Mar 2009 Tue 10:47 pm |
P.S. If you ever went to Huntsville, AL ... you would understand (no offense intended to anyone who might live in Huntsville, AL )
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5. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 12:16 am |
Keep silent partner !
Its not even April 1 yet, but April 1 trouts are already biting ........sishhhhhhh !
Edited (4/1/2009) by AlphaF
Edited (4/1/2009) by AlphaF
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6. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 12:19 am |
Keep silent partner !
April 1 trouts are biting ........sishhhhhhh !
April 1st....Hmmmmmmmm....
Edited (4/1/2009) by Kiara
[Hmmmmm.....]
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8. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 04:48 pm |
Keep silent partner !
Its not even April 1 yet, but April 1 trouts are already biting ........sishhhhhhh !
i completely forgot about april 1.
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9. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 04:51 pm |
Happy April Fools DAY!
Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi
By April Holiday
The Associalized Press
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- NASA engineers and mathematicians in this high-tech city are stunned and infuriated after the Alabama state legislature narrowly passed a law yesterday [March 30, 2009] 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 Guy Hunt says he will sign it into law on Wednesday.
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 (p) 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 called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the 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."
Science supports Lawson, explains Russell Humbleys, a propulsion technician at the Marshall Spaceflight Center who testified in support of the bill before the legislature in Montgomery on Monday. "Pi is merely an artifact of Euclidean geometry." Humbleys is working on a theory which he says will prove that pi is determined by the geometry of three-dimensional space, which is assumed by physicists to be "isotropic", or the same in all directions.
"There are other geometries, and pi is different in every one of them," says Humbleys. Scientists have arbitrarily assumed that space is Euclidean, he says. He points out that a circle drawn on a spherical surface has a different value for the ratio of circumference to diameter. "Anyone with a compass, flexible ruler, and globe can see for themselves," suggests Humbleys, "its not exactly rocket science."
Roger Learned, a Solomon Society member who was in Montgomery to support the bill, agrees. He said that pi is nothing more than an assumption by the mathematicians and engineers who were there to argue against the bill. "These nabobs waltzed into the capital with an arrogance that was breathtaking," Learned said. "Their prefatorial deficit resulted in a polemical stance at absolute contraposition to the legislature´s puissance."
Some education experts believe that the legislation will affect the way math is taught to Alabama´s children. One member of the state school board, Lily Ponja, is anxious to get the new value of pi into the state´s math textbooks, but thinks that the old value should be retained as an alternative. She said, "As far as I am concerned, the value of pi is only a theory, and we should be open to all interpretations." She looks forward to students having the freedom to decide for themselves what value pi should have.
Robert S. Dietz, a professor at Arizona State University who has followed the controversy, wrote that this is not the first time a state legislature has attempted to redefine the value of pi. A legislator in the state of Indiana unsuccessfully attempted to have that state set the value of pi to three. According to Dietz, the lawmaker was exasperated by the calculations of a mathematician who carried pi to four hundred decimal places and still could not achieve a rational number.
Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between traditional values supporters and the technical elite. Solomon Society member Lawson agrees. "We just want to return pi to its traditional value," he said, "which, according to the Bible, is three."
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10. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 04:52 pm |
Happy April Fools Day!
Every day my opinion of religion is confirmed deeper
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11. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 04:53 pm |
Happy April Fools Day!
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12. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 05:43 pm |
Happy April Fools Day!
Very clever!! Happy April Fools back at ya!
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13. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 05:49 pm |
Happy April Fools Day!
Very clever!! Happy April Fools back at ya!
oh, thanks, havent managed to fool anyone today.
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14. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 07:18 pm |
oh, thanks, havent managed to fool anyone today.
haha...well, if you were the mysterious "partner" with AlphaF then you did one better...you fooled two people the day before April Fool´s Day!!
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15. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 07:23 pm |
haha...well, if you were the mysterious "partner" with AlphaF then you did one better...you fooled two people the day before April Fool´s Day!!
noooooooo dont say this. those females who adore alpha wont survive this message.
they will kill me.
i have nothing to do with alpha
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16. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:14 pm |
So glad they finally decided to do away with all those pesky numbers to the right of the decimal. I always found it very distracting!
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:20 pm |
So glad they finally decided to do away with all those pesky numbers to the right of the decimal. I always found it very distracting!
oh, so much agree with you. i think im becoming more math literate. send me an amerikan diploma i deserve it
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:20 pm |
So glad they finally decided to do away with all those pesky numbers to the right of the decimal. I always found it very distracting!
They´ve only gone for today!! They´ll be back again tomorrow
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:22 pm |
oh, so much agree with you. i think im becoming more math literate. send me an amerikan diploma i deserve it
Why would you want to be more math literate? Isn´t that what they invented calculators for?
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:24 pm |
They´ve only gone for today!! They´ll be back again tomorrow
More English propaganda! I assure you, if the great state of Alabama got rid of those numbers....THEY ARE GONE!!
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:26 pm |
More English propaganda! I assure you, if the great state of Alabama got rid of those numbers....THEY ARE GONE!!
Ermm...now I´m not quite sure if you´re joking or not??
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:31 pm |
Ermm...now I´m not quite sure if you´re joking or not??
Well, you can bet your sweet patuty that those digits have been tossed and are now floating at the bottom of the Mississippi!
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:32 pm |
More English propaganda! I assure you, if the great state of Alabama got rid of those numbers....THEY ARE GONE!!
as for english paranoia. why do you pronounce it as in the word PIE and not simply Pi (as in pee) like in origin?
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:37 pm |
as for english paranoia. why do you pronounce it as in the word PIE and not simply Pi (as in pee) like in origin?
Look at Borat.....not only is she a mathematician....she is also a linguist!!
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01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:39 pm |
as for english paranoia. why do you pronounce it as in the word PIE and not simply Pi (as in pee) like in origin?
Don´t know - but I´m scared to ask Lisa if she realises it was an April Fool....
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26. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:41 pm |
Don´t know - but I´m scared to ask Lisa if she realises it was an April Fool....
ah, you spoiled it.
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27. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:43 pm |
Look at Borat.....not only is she a mathematician....she is also a linguist!!
you dont have to announce it publicly
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28. |
01 Apr 2009 Wed 11:47 pm |
you dont have to announce it publicly
From now on, we will call you professor femme!
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29. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 12:01 am |
Stop fighting Ladies. This is supposed to be a romantic thread
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30. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 12:05 am |
Stop fighting Ladies. This is supposed to be a romantic thread
hola ladies, dudu-guru is home!
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31. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 12:57 am |
Heeheehee.... thanks for the laugh!
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32. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 10:55 am |
Offf Alpha - well you fooled me! Probably because nothing surprises me anymore!
Thanks for making me laugh partner
(by the way you are NOT SUPPOSED to play April Fool´s Jokes until April 1st! )
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33. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 12:30 pm |
femme, you are giving yourself away.
They all want to know, how you came to know I am a dudu.
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34. |
02 Apr 2009 Thu 03:44 pm |
femme, you are giving yourself away.
They all want to know, how you came to know I am a dudu.
alpha, you are not just dudu, but guru-dudu.
they all can pm me
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