Pi Day

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My biggest problem with DST is the disruption it has on a persons circadian rhythm. The coloration between sleep deprivation and over-eating, weight gain and stress are pretty well documented. It even makes sense, when you can't sleep you're not happy and you also eat more for the energy that simple sugars and carbohydrates provide. Here we have an obesity problem in the US, as well as other countries around the world. Just about everything has been suggested except that we should maybe stop f***ing around with the clocks twice a year.

The reasoning for moving the clocks forward one hour in the summer almost makes sense, until you realize that we wouldn't have to do that if we never moved them back an hour to begin with!
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I was told that the daylight saving (I don't know of the validity of this, or if which country) that it was supposed to be to help the number of child abductions before school on dark mornings, and we looked at figures with and without DST and it turned out that it worked... however I was also told that it turns out the figures for abductions in the evening counted it anyway.

Again this is hearsay and I don't have a source to give
closed account (2LzbRXSz)
Don't even get me started on DST.

Anyways, I love Pi Day, because it gives me a chance to show off I've had the first 18 digits memorized since elementary school (actually, I only knew the first 9 in my earlier years, but that used to impress everyone on the playground. I had it made in the shade.) It's almost as good as my real favorite holiday - Valentine's day, because of all the puns that can be made with my name.

Happy late 3.14159265358979323 day everybody, and thanks for the interesting articles.
Heh, well, I've got some time, so...

ezchgg wrote:
I never said they were a different unit (assuming you are talking to me cause i'm the only one that talked about degrees). Switching from Pi to Tau will only obscure it more.
Uh, yes you did:
Someone is trying to replace PI cause fractions are hard to understand for beginners... There are already degrees for that.
If you weren't saying that pi and/or fractions are redundant because degrees (different units) exist, then what were you saying?

Would love to see the US join the rest of the world and adopt the metric system before it's too late if it isn't already.
Do you not understand that by adding this you specifically highlight your issue with units?

I only mentioned degrees because in the video he said that Tau makes it easier for beginners who don't know fractions by simplifying the fractional part such that the top value is always 1 and makes it a bit easier to tell if one radian (from the 4-5) is greater than the other. This isn't even really a significant benefit, for anyone other than beginners who have a hard time understanding how fractions work. ...
I think you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

The whole point is that it makes more sense to beginners.
And it has nothing to do with understanding how fractions work.
It has everything to do with making a 1:1 correlation between the fraction and the unit of measurement.

The main benefit of it being fraction is that when doing computations. If you have 1/3 for example. You now simply say your answer is 0.3333333 and that answer may be good for your calculator. When someone else needs to use the same result but they need more precision, if it was left in the form 1/3 then that person could simply calculate it to whatever digit they needed.
You are arguing the utility of fractions vs decimal representations -- totally unrelated to the issue of pi vs tau.

Pi is a known quantity whose value can be calculated.
Tau is also a known quantity that can be calculated. Oddly enough, as tau is twice pi, it is just as easy to calculate one as the other.

Changing from Pi to Tau would not benefit anyone, simply create a rift in knowledge of those that know Tau and those that only know Pi.
That's a false dichotomy. You cannot learn one without learning the other.

There is no benefit here except maybe instead of first teaching students Degrees and ease them into Radians when they understand the concepts with degrees, they will instead use Tau.
Wut? It seems to me that you are again conflating tau with some arbitrary numbering like radians.

If you are going to have to perform a conversion of some sort you'll have to do it no matter what. Having to perform conversions is not a valid argument against using pi/tau.

Not even human error?
Human error is always a problem and not unique to using tau vs pi. This is a red herring argument.

What happened to "such things only obscure the mathematics more"
Oh, a strawman! Thanks! (I've missed those!)

For people who know and understand pi/tau/whatever, it doesn't matter. The fact is the math works out the same no matter whether you write it as 2π or т. You seem very interested in ignoring the fact that

    2π ≡ т

But as you are so well-versed with pi, why not just use it? Your experience does not correlate with observed learning behavior.

Now, if you had read the "manifesto" or any comment, you would see that the point of it all is conceptual clarity. Oh, but wait,

I only skimmed through the longer video and it seemed...
If you aren't going to bother reading/watching/understanding the arguments against yours, how do you really expect anyone to take your "rebuttals" seriously? Because then you'll say things like:

Actually it'll be worse cause i'd have to memorize a lot of the formulas with Tau.
...which only goes to show you don't know what you are talking about.

The whole point of tau is that there is nothing (as in lists of formulas) to memorize.

The whole point, again, is pedagogical utility. It has no effect on extant literature, practice, or correctness. That's a pretty good plus.


Mats wrote:
Not quite right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29

Wow, sweet! I stand corrected.

I don't think it quite demolishes my argument that the cost of instantly metricating (funny word) is fiscally feasible. I do personally think it was a mistake for congress to vote on metrication without applying a deadline of some sort (and instead marking it as optional compliance).

I think that there should be a timeframe set to metricate. Ten, maybe twenty years. And it will happen.


Ipsil wrote:
Duous, you mentioned Daylight Savings in terms of "valid reasoning." I would disagree. In fact, that "change over" for summer happens to be the day with the most workplace accidents: http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/17749/workplace-injuries-rise-after-switch-to-daylight-savings

It's not even a cheap cost: the workplace accidents, sluggishness, and other things result in possibly a $434 million cost. http://sleepbetter.org/Lost-Hour-Economic-Index/

So yeah, I don't care if it makes summer longer- it's expensive, and killing people.

I don't disagree, but you are arguing one side of the coin while discounting the validity of the other argument. Just as there are nice arguments against DST showing huge costs, there are nice arguments for DST showing savings.

I don't claim to know the answer. My personal opinion is that you ought to leave the clock alone and behave differently as appropriate. (It is not unusual for people to change times of things outside of DST's effects.)

[It's] killing people
That isn't necessarily a complete argument against DST. It is, at least, an argument that people ought to be more careful about how they manage their industry during the change. What the argument has going for it is that capitalists don't care to do anything to make that one day safer for their slaves employees.


Computergeek01 wrote:
My biggest problem with DST is the disruption it has on a persons circadian rhythm.

Agreed. People who work in healthcare, for example, experience unpleasant circadian shifts on a regular basis -- and their is a documented correlation between sleep deprivation and mistakes made in healthcare.

The [correlation] between sleep deprivation and over-eating, weight gain and stress are pretty well documented.

Yet, I think it probably that a week's worth of stress from "spring forward" is less significant than other regular stressors in people's lives. Blaming it all on the clocks doesn't strike me as a safe argument.

@SatsumaBenji
Wow...

@cactus
I've only got 3.14159265 memorized, though I should also have the 3589 memorized too... Alas.

Also, most people don't like it when others play with their names, so that's interesting.

I just bought my wife some tulips to plant in the front of the house. (She likes to keep the garden along the porch there.) Hopefully they will bloom all through the holiday.

Saint Valentines is a wonderfully morbid holiday too...
And, for fun, http://www.decidedlygrim.net/?p=5684
(Scroll to the bottom for "the lovers".)

/end
closed account (2LzbRXSz)
@Duoas
My goal was to only remember the first 10 digits, since that's the length of a phone number. I always remember things in sections though, so "3.141592653" didn't feel right, and I learned the "3589" but of course, that was 13 digits. I'm not a big fan of the number 13. "79323" was the next "group" so I memorized that, bumping up the number of digits I have to 18. (Such a long story for something so simple, I know).

My name happens to be Valerie, and I love puns so I don't mind people playing around with my name for Valentine's Day.

That's a pretty amazing picture, thanks for sharing, and good luck with the tulips!
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SatsumaBenji wrote:
put an 's' on the end of maths (I'm surprised you say you learn "math" but you don't say you learn "physic")
remember the 'u' in spellings (colour, favour, etc)
"Math" and "maths" are abbreviations of the word "Mathematics" while "physics" is not an abbreviation.

IIRC the 'u' was dropped because some dingus (Noah Webster) decided to change the spelling of words in hopes of actually making a new "American" English.
Now you are being rude and using the oldest stupid verbiage trick in the book. You clearly have no idea what you are saying, but go ahead, just say that I can't understand you... even after asking you to explain yourself.

You claim I'm putting words in your mouth by completely misrepresenting what I have said, even after reading two simple sentences. Who's the biased idiot who can't understand a single sentence after it has been explained?

Oh, that's right. It's me, the person who hasn't markedly refused to bother reading.

Go away.
Now you are being rude and using the oldest stupid verbiage trick in the book

I'm not being rude, it's my genuine feeling. If you can't even understand a single sentence (with multiple explanations) why should i give you the courtesy of reading anything else? What trick in what book?

Who's the rude one when you are resorting to name calling and curses.

Oh, that's right. It's me, the person who hasn't markedly refused to bother reading.

I've read your misunderstanding of what i said. I can only conjure that the rest of what you have to say will be more of the same (not worth my time).

No you haven't markedly refused to bother reading, you simply read it in a way to suit your argument. Not reading it with its intended meaning. You may not have said so but you are being blatantly ignorant either unconsciously or consciously, it really doesn't matter at this point though as i can see you don't care for reason.

Go away.

No?
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