Wednesday 14 March 2018

A Tau In The Face Is Not The Same As A Pi

March 14th is said to be the most exciting day for Mathematicians which not only shows that Mathematicians should get out more but it gives them the chance to show their fun side by eating circular treats dressing like Albert Einstein and make humorous jokes about Sir Cumference who was the fattest knight at the round table because he ate too much pi.
Three hours i was in the hospital getting my sides sewn back together the first time i heard that one.
The reason for the Math's nerds getting overexcited today is down to Greek Archimedes who first calculated pi in 3 BC as 3.14 and although NASA have said that you only need to calculate pi to 39 digits, scientists have calculated it to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point which seems a bit extreme.
After 2000 years of dominance though Pi has a challenger in the shape of 'Tau' which by all accounts is a number that serves much the same purpose but instead of adding on digits, doubles the previous number.
Some scientists are getting their pens in a spin over it but mainly because you can't make jokes about Tau like you can about pi but let's leave them to swing their handbags at each other and let us know when they have worked it out because for most of us the only pi we care about is the one with apple in it.

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