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From: ntt@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.math,net.legal,net.misc
Subject: State law defining Pi (part 2 of 3: the story, and source info)
Message-ID: <815@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Mar-84 18:09:35 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.815
Posted: Thu Mar 29 18:09:35 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Mar-84 18:51:35 EST
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See part 1 article for netnews References:; the References: line grew
too long for our system to handle.


My source for the information following, and for the text of the bill in
the part 3 article, is a 5-page article that appeared in the 1930's in
the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science.  That article is
researched from primary sources:  it gives specific citations in the
Indianapolis newspapers and the House and Senate Journals from 1897,
and a PIAS article written from memory in 1916.  I have only a many-
generationed photocopy of the 1930's article, kindly sent to me by
Russ Archer of mhuxr.  There is no direct indication of the date,
but July 1935 is referred to as "the past summer" in the article. 
In case anyone wants to trace it, the author is Will E. Edington, the
title is "House Bill No. 246, Indiana State Legislature, 1897", and
the page number in the PIAS is 206.

I was unable to find any reference by Martin Gardner to the story,
neither in "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science" as suggested
by John Hobson (ihuxq!amigo2) nor in his Scientific American columns.
He did write a column about pi in June(?) 1960.  I have seen brief
references in several places, including the Guinness Book of World
Records.  Frequently these references give the wrong wrong value of Pi.
It was 3.2, not 3 as the Bible seems to suggest, nor 4 as Guinness says.

So, what happened?

The author of the bill was Dr. Edwin J. Goodwin, an M.D., of
Solitude, Indiana.  As Betsy Perry said, he was a crank mathematician.
Presumably wanting recognition for his supposed discovery,
he contacted his Representative, one Taylor I. Record, with his
epoch-making suggestion:  if the State would pass an Act recognizing
his discovery, he would allow all Indiana textbooks to use it without
paying him a royalty.  (Dr. Goodwin seems to have had a distorted
idea of the powers of copyright, as well.)

Nobody in the Indiana Legislature knew enough mathematics to know that
the "discovery" was nonsense.  The bill was introduced in the House
of Representatives on Monday, January 18, 1897, and (of course :-) ) it
was referred to the Committee on Canals, often called Swamp Lands.
The next day they reported back with the recommendation that it be
referred to the Committee on Education.  The day after that, the
State Superintendent of Public Education was reported in a newspaper
article to be supporting the bill.

Well, the Committee on Education approved the bill!  It was introduced
for second reading on Friday, February 5, and passed 72-0.  Then "Mr.
Nicholson moved that the constitutional rule requiring bills to be
read on three [different] days be suspended", and it was, and the
bill had its third reading, and passed 67-0.

At this point the text of the bill was published "and, of course,
became the target for ridicule", "in this and other states".
One of the papers said, "This is the strangest bill that has ever
passed an Indiana Assembly".

By this time a real mathematician, Prof. C. A. Waldo, had learned
what was going on.  In fact, he was present when the bill was read
on February 5.  ("...imagine [the author's] surprise when
he discovered that he was in the midst of a debate upon a piece of
mathematical legislation.  An ex-teacher was saying ... 'The case is
perfectly simple.  If we pass this bill which establishes a new and
correct value for Pi, the author offers ... its free publication in
our school text books, while everyone else must pay him a royalty'",
Waldo wrote in the 1916 article.)  But the House had passed the bill.

Fortunately, Indiana has, or had, a bicameral legislature.  The bill
came up for first reading in the Senate on Thursday, February 11.
Apparently deciding to have some fun, they referred it to the Committee
on Temperance.  The Committee reported back on Friday, February 12,
approving the bill, which then had its second reading.

The Indianapolis Journal reported what happened:  "The Senators
made bad puns about it, ridiculed it, and laughed over it.  The fun
lasted half an hour.  Senator Hubbell said that it was not meet for
the Senate, which was costing the State $250 a day [!], to waste its
time in such frivolity ... He moved the indefinite postponement of
the bill, and the motion carried.  ...  All of the senators who
spoke on the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits of
the proposition.  [In the end,] it was simply regarded as not being a
subject for legislation."

Mark Brader