It has long been regarded as the most important number in the world - but now mathematicians are suggesting that pi may have had its day.
Experts are claiming that the number - the constant which references the circumference of a circle to its diameter - is wrong, and should be replaced with an alternate value called tau.
And they have said that while 3.14159265, the number's value, is not incorrect, the mathematicians making the claims say it is the wrong figure to be associated with the properties of a circle as a matter of course.
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| Experts believe the number (represented by top left figure) should be replaced in calculations by tau (bottom right) |
They are also campaigning for school textbooks to be rewritten using tau, which has a value twice that of pi of approximately 6.28 - and had even declared June 28 to be tau Day in its honour.
'For all these years, we have been looking at the wrong number when we have been looking at pi,' Kevin Houston, of the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds told The Times.
'Pi simply isn't the most natural number that we should associate with a circle. The proper number is 2pi, or tau.' The number has long been seen as being essential to many mathematical formulae as well as being vital to equations in science and engineering.
It is used when calculating the circumference of a circle - by multiplying the diameter by the value of pi - while its area can be deduced by multiplying pi by the square of its radius.
However, mathematicians campaigning for its replacement argue that since so many formulae require the use of tau, that should be used as the main circle constant instead. 'Mathematicians don't measure angles in degrees, we measure them in radians, and there are 2pi radians in a circle,' Dr Houston said. "That leads to all sorts of unnecessary confusion. If you take a quarter of a circle, it has a quarter of 2pi radians, or half pi.
For the number of radians in three quarters of a circle, you have to think about it. It doesn't come naturally. 'How much simpler it would be if we just used tau instead of pi,' Dr Houston added. 'The circle would have tau radians, a semicircle would have half tau, a quarter of a circle a quarter tau, and so on. You don't have to think.'
Dr Houston has promoted Tau Day by making a YouTube video on the subject entitled Pi is wrong! which attempts to explain why tau would be a better alternative when making such calculations.
He argues that it would also make A-level maths considerably easier while it would help people to better understand such complex topics as calculus.
Pi -- taken from the first letter of the Greek word for 'perimeter' -- was first given its name in 1706 by mathematician William Jones.
© Daily Mail, London |
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