Re: Pi and Alabama (Off Topic)

From: David Retallick (retallick@aragon.de)
Date: Thu May 07 1998 - 16:34:07 EEST


Priit Kull wrote:
>
> Hi list
>
> Of cource the Pi legislation in Alabama is a joke for the simple reason that
> they have got the wrong value for it.
>
> I am going to prove that the correct value for Pi is actually 2.
>
> The reasoning goes like this. You take a unit circle with R=1. According to
> the definition of Pi the length of such a circle's surcumference is 2Pi,
> that is half of the circle = Pi and diameter=2. Now you draw a half of a
> circle with R=0.5 on the half of the diameter and another halfcircle on the
> other half of the diameter. The length of the first halfcircle is 0.5Pi. The
> same goes for the other halfcircle. That means that the total length of the
> bent line is equal to Pi. Now we do the same trick of deviding the R and D
> by 2 and we end up with 4 halfcircles 0.25Pi length each, which once again
> totals to 1Pi. Continuing in the same line (8*0.125Pi=1Pi, 16*0.0625Pi=1Pi
> ...) we can every time prove that the total length of the bent line is equal
> to Pi. At last we end up with a straight line, which (look at the beginning
> of the paragraph) is the diameter of the original unit circle and therefore
> 2. Ergo Pi=2.

Hi Priit,

yes, we know about this theory. It is usually applied to coastline
calculations
and basically says, "whatever you thought, it always turns out to be 50%
more!"
I cannot disprove your theory, because I donīt have the necessary
mathematical tools,
but; I can say the following:

1. This reasoning is the basis for fractal algorithms and leads into the
choas theory.
2. As my life is a chaos anyway, you canīt frighten me into thoughts of
rethinking it!

Just think, certain firms are using fractals as supports and others are
producing chaos!

(not advertising for anyone, no new product announcements, just
thoughts)

-- 
Dr. David Retallick
Retallick Systems, Baumgaertle 36, 
D-86505 Muensterhausen (Germany)
phone +49/8281-1763 - fax +49/8281-5556
http://www.retallick.de

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/



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