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Re: The Reason Why Tau Is Fundamental And Why Pi Is Not
Posted:
Jan 2, 2013 11:46 PM
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From Kaba:
> I agree that ideally tau should be used. Such things are important to
> cut away the complexity from formulas, and to bring out uniformity,
> something which in my experience always pays off, revealing structure
> and diminishing the amount of errors. Actually, I'd imagine, although I
> do not know, that the use of the tau has the symphathy of many
> mathematicians.
>
> But there's also some conflict in that if I change to use tau in my
> papers, then the formulae will look odd to other readers, simply because
> they have been reading pi for all their life. I know that if I saw tau
> used in a Fourier transform, I would start looking for the meaning of
> tau as a variable. And perhaps a bit sadly, this need to be understood
> as well as possible may override ideality.
>
> But I also think that this is one of those things which just need an
> initial push. After a critical mass of mathematicians/scientists adopt
> tau instead of pi, then the change happens naturally.
The current generation of young gradeschoolers are growing up never having known Pluto as a planet. They will learn a proper definition of a planet, and they will wonder why the "old folk" ever considered that Pluto counted as one.
Imagine when an entire generation gets raised with Tau and not Pi. And this particular change does not need any declaration from a governing body, like Pluto or converting to/from metric. The grass roots effort can work just fine. I totally agree that this change will happen naturally.
I remember myself being in gradeschool learning about the Circle Ratio and wondering why the Circumference was being divided by the Diameter and not the Radius. Kids who ask that question today will find out about Tau.
~ CT
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