Pi is Wrong?
Have you ever had the creepy feeling that something wasn’t quite right, but couldn’t really put your finger on it? Well, this article finally helped me put my finger on it. It also makes me wonder what other “universal constants” are simply the result of a quirk of fate or arbitrary decision. Can the discoverer of a new constant accurately foresee all the future applications of his work? Or is (s)he merely forced to resort to random guessing, hoping that he picks the “correct” expression of the value?
April 15th, 2007 at 10:44 pm
Would you rather wait around with nothing for “the” answer to the secrets of the universe? Or, would you accept “an” answer now on the understanding it may need to be revised or used in another context later?
April 18th, 2007 at 6:58 am
The question I’ve asked isn’t whether to choose between ‘”the” answer to the secrets of the universe’ and nothing, but rather how to choose between two potentially equivalent means of expression. If you read the article, you’ll note that there were two independent formulations of Pi, one relating the circumference of the circle to its diameter (which became the Pi we use today), and the other relating it to its radius. Had the latter been chosen and popularized, the situation I’m taking issue with would not exist.
As a corollary - is it worth changing the definition of the constant, in light of what we now know, to better reflect our improved understanding? No doubt any such change would entail a degree of hardship from those billions of us accustomed to the old value, but it would be to the benefit of potentially trillions of future humans who would have a far more elegant constant. Or is the potential gain of elegance so small - and appreciated by so few - that the change is simply not worth the effort, despite the potential advantages to future generations? Personally, I seriously doubt that any change will ever take place (barring an encounter with technologically superior alien race(s) who use the alternate value), but I also think such a change could have (and should have) been made much earlier in our history, when the eminent scientists of the era discovered the potential for a better option. Which begs the question of why we, as people who understand and recognize the potential for improved understanding, don’t make this change now, before it’s too late.