This seems like a whole lot of nothing. There are many formulas and relationships where pi is by itself and not multiplied by two (area of a circle). Using tau means that while the circle constant is now simpler, those equations become more complex because you would now have to multiply or divide by 2.
Tau is not a magical solution and serious mathematicians will go about their business using pi, because serious mathematicians are not afraid of multiplying by 2.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...volving_%CF%80
Take a look at how many equations have 2pi. Circumference, surface area and volume of a sphere would be simplified by replacing Pi with Tau. Now look at all the rest. There is no simplification in those. For many integrals, it would make much more sense to simply use Pi instead of Tau/2.
It's not. I'm not declaring Fahrenheit objectively better than Celsius (I think it's objectively inferior), I'm just saying that Fahrenheit is a system of convenience rather than usefulness. For weather, Fahrenheit works really well.
You've got to admit, 0 and 100 are a bit more round and intuitive than -40 and 30. Anyone that's dealt with either scale for more than about two days will be totally comfortable with either though.
I might have changed professional orientation if i had knew this back in elementary school!
True story: One time I bought a key-lime pie, and offered my roommate "half a pie", and she said sure, and I gave her a quarter of the pie.
Tau would ruin that joke. I would be forced to retreat to low-brow fart jokes.
That's what life is like in my crew of aged chess-club nerds. Like one time my ex's phone was acting up, and she mentioned at dinner that she wasn't sure if it was still on or not, so I told her "It is as long as you don't check it"
But back on topic, pi makes more sense when dealing with classical mechanics, because radius is more often used. Tau would clearly make more sense when dealing with waves, such as in modern physics.
So both Pi and Tau have their moment. Yes, pun intended.
Lets count:
0
pie
tau
Interesting that I've never seen a problem using 2pie or learning it... while tau makes sense when teaching I'm not sure it'll really help that much in the long run.
Either you'll have to get used to pie or just replace every pie with ½tau.
Exactly
I'm not a mathmatician (I'm bad at it) not a physicist but the guy in the video is very clear O.o wish it was my math/physics teacher in high school.
mines simply lacked charisma and ability to keep the classes in check or to have them motivated in learning the subject. ;(
Well, it's all convention. R is usually what's used rather than D when describing geometries in my experience. You need 1 parameter to describe a circle, and that parameter is going to be fundamental, but what you pick is up to taste.
I'd say that having two constants that are reserved for the same physical constant is pointless. The hard science community wouldn't accept a change in convention that purely benefits grade school children, so basically you are teaching children something that is technically wrong.
I think the problem is only that "pi" sounds like "pie" which has a definite connotation when it comes to circles.
Just realized something
3.14 written backwards is 41.3 which looks remarkably like PI.E