Pi is wrong! Here comes Tau Day

Tired of all those 2 times pi in your mathematical formula? Then switch to tau!

Tau Day is on Tuesday June 28th!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• pi is wrong
• tau day

[StOnEr4803]

As we all know, pi is about 3.14. What is 3.14 mirrored: PIE.

[DrKevinHouston]

@StOnEr4803 Spooky. And some people say that the universe doesn't have a sense of humour.

[orrisachar]

You should approach Apple about licencing your voice for Siri!!!

[DrKevinHouston]

@orrisachar Thanks for the advice. They said they'd call me back.

[matleyz]

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." -Thomas Paine

[MrXasian]

@DrKevinHouston I don´t get it

[abrelosojo]

tau is more fundamental than pi because it’s the period of functions satisfying f''-f. in other words it’s the very special distance it takes for these functions to get back to where they started.

once we're using tau instead of pi, the next step is to stop defining tau in terms of circles, but rather as this special distance. its association with circles can then be seen as a consequence of that.

[hreader]

Sorry, trig functions WERE mentioned but only very briefly.

[hreader]

Kevin Houston makes a very good case. Oddly enough I have wondered idly from time to time if there shouldn't be some way of encapsulating 2pi in one symbol. As Kevin says many formulae make a lot more sense, especially the integration with respect to r (radius) to get the area of a circle. And of course a sine wave goes from 1 to tau, not 1 to 2pi - surprised this wasn't mentioned as the sine function's so basic.

[guyboy625]

Oh, and I'm gonna start using tau in school.

[guyboy625]

@DrKevinHouston Maybe this is done on purpose by some crazy mathematician. (William Jones?) It could hardly be the universe's fault since:

1. It depends on choosing π over τ.

2. It depends on naming it π.

3. It depends on the decimal system.

4. It depends on Arabic numerals.

5. It depends on Latin characters.

6. It depends on ancient Greek.

7. It depends on the English word "pie", its spelling, and its pronunciation.

[xTipshedax]

All hail the mighty tau! I haven't started using a lot of the formulas you discussed in the video for pi in my math class yet, but from my understanding, it looks better than pi. Im going to start using tau...

[ConspiracyChannel101]

pi * 3(3) / 5.5 = 5.1407879786014798447570528090­028

Uh....This was going to be an expression I just discovered. Way to turn me down...

[DrKevinHouston]

@therealcalhounninja Thanks. I do indeed have an accent. It's a lot weaker now. When I first moved to university no one could understand me...