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From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.math
Subject: Re: Who said pi was 3?
Message-ID: <1162@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Mar-86 14:57:07 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.1162
Posted: Fri Mar 28 14:57:07 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 28-Mar-86 17:23:51 EST
References: <6895@tektronix.UUCP> <17600006@inmet> <12565@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 28
Summary: 3.2

Matthew P. Wiener (weemba@brahms.UUCP) writes:
> I remember _The Mathematical Intelligencer_ running an article not too long
Reference please?  I'd like to read it.

> ago with a discussion of the aborted Indiana attempt.  One half of the
> legislature mindlessly passed the law that someone introduced to please his
> friend, whose geometrical description was so inept that no one could derive
> a value of pi from it.

The bill actually included the words:

	the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as
	five-fourths to four.

The usual definition of pi is the reciprocal of the above,
which makes it clearly 3.2 according to the bill.

This is not to see that the bill is not indeed inept.  Look at the
strange mode of expression; this is typical.  And there seems to be at
least one arithmetic error elsewhere in addition to the basic non-facts.
[Another of the latter is a new formula for computing the area of a circle:
 in effect A = (pi^2 / 4) * (r^2), i.e., A = 2.56 * r^2.]

I seem to have thrown away the online text that I posted to the net
a couple of years ago, but I'll type it in again IF there's a demand.
Or did anyone save a copy?

Mark Brader