111 Years Ago, Indiana Almost Legislated Pi

[ChamberedRound]

In light of all the ammo serialization and microstamping legislation being considered, I'm posted this as another example showing how ridiculous some legislation can be, and how legislators many times aren't educated in any way about the legislation they sponsor or support. And it's not just legislators today, but throughout our history.

See this slashdot.org post here:
http://science.slashdot.org/article....23204&from=rss

"On February 5, 1897, 111 years ago today, the Indiana legislature very nearly passed a bill 'introducing a new mathematical truth,' that would have erroneously established pi as the ratio 'five-fourths to four' or 3.2. The story explaining the rationale behind the bill and how they were prevented from legislating it when a real mathematician intervened is quite interesting, because the man who discovered the 'new mathematical truth' wanted to charge royalties, which could have made pi the first form of irrational property."

And here's one of the articles this slashdot post references:
http://www.wired.com/science/discove...dayintech_0205

Feb. 5, 1897: Indiana Pols Forced to Eat Humble Pi
By Tony Long Email 02.05.08 | 12:00 AM

1897: Egged on by an amateur mathematician, the Indiana General Assembly almost passes a bill adopting 3.2 as the exact value of pi (or π). Only the intervention of a Purdue University mathematician who happens to be visiting the legislature prevents the bill from becoming law, saving the most acute political embarrassment.

What became known as the Indiana pi bill was sponsored by Rep. T.I. Record at the behest of Edwin J. Goodwin, a physician and math dilettante who claimed to have figured out how to square circles.

House Bill 246, proposed as "an act introducing a new mathematical truth," went through three reads before being passed unanimously by the House, presumably to avoid having to endure a fourth.

Although it comes down to us as the "pi bill," pi itself is never mentioned in Record's bill, which was, in fact, intended to confirm Goodwin's formula for squaring the circle. The value 3.2 for pi was a prerequisite for making that formula plausible.

House 246 was sent on to the state Senate and was on the verge of passage when everyone's bacon was serendipitously saved by C.A. Waldo, a Purdue mathematics professor who happened to be in the Statehouse on another matter. Shown the bill and offered an introduction to the genius whose theory it was, Waldo declined, saying he already knew enough crazy people.

Waldo stuck around long enough to educate the senators, and the bill eventually went away.

Incidentally, pi is an irrational number -- its value can be worked out in infinitesimal detail, never ending and never repeating -- but calculated down to 50 decimal places it is 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375 10. Squaring the circle remains a mathematical impossibility.

[ScaredOnce]

That'd simplify quite a bit, however our understand and progress would have been hindered quite a bit. Hmm... reminds of the AWB!



Interesting historical post. Thanks!

[HiredGoon]

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM....... PI
Homer Simpson

[ScaredOnce]

The person who attempted to seek the legislation of pi = 3.2 must be the greatgrandparents of those that'd like to make intelligent design a required counter-argument to evolution.

Evolution is not a theory anymore. Those that try to support the counter-argument, that 'evolution must be wrong because He said', with a litteral interpretation of the Holy Bible always give me a good laugh...

[er2006]

In light of all the ammo serialization and microstamping legislation being considered, I'm posted this as another example showing how ridiculous some legislation can be, and how legislators many times aren't educated in any way about the legislation they sponsor or support. And it's not just legislators today, but throughout our history.

See this slashdot.org post here:
http://science.slashdot.org/article....23204&from=rss


And here's one of the articles this slashdot post references:
http://www.wired.com/science/discove...dayintech_0205

This is the "Darwin Awards" effect!

[Lycanthrope]

I like Pi........



Lycanorwasitpie?thrope