Tau-Da!
I completely missed the celebration of tau yesterday as well as being completely ignorant of a movement among mathematicians to replace my favorite constant, pi. I have spoken previously (once) here about pi and even use the first few digits of it as part of my username here at WordPress. At least once a year, on Pi Day, which corresponds to March 14th (or as close to 3.14 as you can get on our calendars), I celebrate the never-repeating, endlessly enlightening expression of the ratio between a circle’s circumference and it’s diameter … or wait, is that it’s radius.
I received a Tweet that intrigued me, entitled ‘Mathematicians Want to Say Goodbye to Pi‘ with an accompanying link. I read the article, but what really held my attention was an inserted YouTube video from someone named Kevin Houston (with a British, not Texan, accent). If you enjoy math, take a few minutes to watch his video.
So, since Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th, and 2π is roughly 6.28, it follows that celebrating tau should occur on June 28th. Or so the tau enthusiasts hope.
I’m still on the fence, preferring pi for the moment; although, I agree the use of tau has its merits in simplicity and beauty.