So today is national Tau day.
Where Tau equal 2 times Pi
evidently there are a few vocal mathmaticans who are advocating that we should abandon the use of Pi and start using Tau in equations....
granted their reasons are absurd imo
Pi is the "irrational" infinite number you get when you divide the circumference of a circle by its diameter. It starts 3.14159265, it fits into all kinds of equations and it turns up in strange places such as the fractal geometry of the Mandelbrot Set.
Tau is the number you get when you use a circle's radius instead. It fits neatly into equations in place of 2Pi and clears up the problem of radians, which is the way mathematicians measure angles.
U.S. physicist, educator, and entrepreneur Dr Michael Hartl, author of The Tau Manifesto, says Pi is a "confusing and unnatural choice" for the circle constant. "I find it fascinating that the absurdity of Pi was lying in plain sight for centuries before anyone seemed to notice," he said.
And as the approximate value of Tau is 6.28, twice Pi's 3.14, the dissident mathematicians have declared June 28 to be Tau Day -- as June 28 is written as 6.28 in American style, The (London) Times reported.
"For all these years, we have been looking at the wrong number when we have been looking at Pi," said Kevin Houston, of the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds, who is leading the British arm of the Tau campaign.
"Pi simply isn't the most natural number that we should associate with a circle. The proper number is 2Pi, or Tau."
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/28/on-national-tau-day-pi-under-attack/
