Happy Tau Day, the true circle constant

gakos 7 years ago |

Tau > Pi?

But what will we eat on Tau day? Tau-cos have my vote. A tortilla is still a circle we can describe mathematically with tau.

java-man 7 years ago | |

interestingly, taco shape looks like half pie...

gakos 7 years ago | | |

Actually, that'd be one Pi but half Tau! Ha!!

adverbly 7 years ago |

I told this to my girlfriend and explained to her what tau is. She responded that she actually had bought two pies just a few hours ago. Excellent.

gakos 7 years ago | |

So good. 2 pies = 2 Taus though. Ha!

nikofeyn 7 years ago |

the argument for tau is so silly, and it seems to be mainly supported by non-mathematicians. i don’t know of any real mathematician that cares. and it’s because it’s a toss-up really. so people just keep going. there’s more importnat things to do.

gakos 7 years ago | |

Sure, more important things to do. But isn't a minimal change to a plethora of formulas that simplifies things worth consideration? How far are you along the circumference of a circle? Or what's this angle in radians? Isn't Taur vs 2Pi*r easier both conceptually and computationally?

nikofeyn 7 years ago | | |

when i was doing graduate mathematics, i felt that there were just as many formulas that would be hurt by a change to tau as there were those helped by it. proponents of tau seem to cherry pick and don’t showcase everywhere that you’ll pick up tau/2, which is objectively more awkward than occurences of pi and 2*pi. switching to tau isn’t a change that is a global simplification.

gakos 7 years ago | | |

Fair point. Can you share some more detailed examples?

Disclaimer: I posted this article originally because of the humor component, but I also think it's a legitimate conversation to have.