Well we wouldn't use it because it was wrong. I have no interest in describing the ratio between a circle's diameter and it's circumference as 3.2. Mathematicians would've realized the mistake pretty quickly and just used another variable or some other definition. Engineers don't use flat earth physics and they wouldn't use 3.2
I coded a small (and simple) physics program to emulate the basics of a pool table (well, the physics of its balls actually) and decided to try changing the value of Pi to 3.2 and the thing just went nuts! Actually, the movement of the balls looked like it was being influenced by quantum physics!
The hubris to think that after 2000 years, not only did you solve an unsolvable problem, but you did it because you are the only person in history to notice pi is 3.2...wow dude
pi is exactly three. EDIT: because I’m still getting comments 6 years later. My comment is a reference to an episode of the simpsons where professor frink was forced to loudly declare pi is exactly 3 to get the attention of his roused peers during a presentation.
I think the scarier part, to be honest, is the attempt to patent pi. Obviously, even if it went through, it obviously wasn't pi, but... just imagine if there was legal precedent for patenting it.
I'm not sure, the sources I can find seem to say he was trying to patent his methods for squaring the circle. Though I can't find any direct information on the patent application itself, or even what ended up happening to it.
Yeah...I reside in the great state of Indiana. I was in my second semester of undergraduate in mathematics when one of my calc profs told us this story. He is a mathematical historian on the side and one of his electives is on the history of mathematics. In defense of Indiana and America, Dr Waldo ,who educated the Senate and stopped the bill, was from Purdue University.
This reminds me of something I read a while back about, I think it was an American high school teacher, who claimed he solved the problem of dividing by zero by inventing a constant with the value 1/0... BRILLIANT!
I live in Indiana and once we tried to tried to make schools teach pi as equal to 3 instead of 3.14 and also in schools the acceleration due to gravity is sometimes taught as 10 m/s^2 instead of 9.8 m/s^2
Don't be embarrassed for the state of Indiana. Every state, and every nation has far worse things to be embarrassed about. As a general rule, no government should ever make official declarations of scientific (or mathematical) facts. Scientific truth can take care of itself. Government "enforcement" of scientific truth will only lead to trouble - anything from completely false ideas, all the way to outright acts of horrible evil.
Not knowing what "squaring the circle" was before this video, I must admit I had to look it up elsewhere to really understand. In the video, it is explained as "finding" a square and circle of the same area. Which sounds like you could just say, "the circle has a radius of n and the square has a width of n*pi^(1/2). Solved. But instead, the challenge is to construct it with a compass and straight edge, which is of course a much different type of challenge. It could be that the language you used conveyed that and I just don't know it, but on first brush it seems like an important detail may have been left out.
@@bradirv State laws can't apply to the whole nation. If New York passes a law that New York is the only state allowed to say "kerfuffle," it does absolutely nothing, because other states don't follow the laws of New York.
Hey, I am an Indiana native, and if we say Pi is equal to 3.2, then by God, that is what it equals. If you don't like it, we'll stop letting you in to watch the Indy 500!
Unless it was in Austin, if it happened in Austin, they would have not passed it, in favor of a different bill that declares that pi and all math is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy.
In school I was told that pi was 22/7 so of course I tried to find an exact value I found the recurring decimals 3.142857142857… by doing long division and I was really proud of myself until I realised that pi is not 22/7 I was also told that e=19/7 I don’t know why they liked 7 so much
To be fair if you understood US politics in the late 19th century, corruption was a big thing so obviously someone just bribed people to pass the bill along.
Perhaps, since this video is related to squaring the circle, he wanted to make a subtle reference to another impossible ancient Greek problem - doubling the cube. Given a cube, is it always possible to construct a cube with exactly twice the volume? It turns out that it is impossible. There exist cubes which cannot be doubled using the ancient Greek methods. So maybe his unsolved Rubix cube was a reference to how one cannot "solve" the problem of doubling the cube ;)
@@MuffinsAPlenty That wall of text also mentions him having a 'proof' of solving this problem, and setting the diagonal of a unit square = root(2) = 10/7 As well as trisecting an angle.
Speaks volumes about that guy. He was so confident that he could solve a problem which had been mathematically proven to be impossible. And didn’t even know the correct value of pi
Very interesting. At some point, in the last few decades, I recall hearing that Indiana had just passed such a law, not a hundred years prior. It didn't strike me as important at the time, and I'm pretty sure it was pre-internet, anyway. I wish I could remember the source. Obviously, whoever it was spreading this disinformation was entirely out of their depth.
At that time it was probably very difficult to explain rational numbers to the masses, so yes 32/10 is good approach. I really think 22/7 was the best close to the true discovery of the all time Pi calculations.
Constants in the Imperial System:
Pi = 3.2
Slice = 0.76
Crumb = 0.04
+Patrick Star lol
+Patrick Star oh, i love pi. Especially on apples
+Patrick Star GALACTIC IMPERIAL SYSTEM
lol
+Patrick Star Your pic totally makes that comment. For many reasons.
hey bro i can remember 39 digits of pi how many do you know?
i know ALL of them bro.
really bro? prove it.
3.2 bro
bro
+Christopher Gudgeon brooooo
Bro bro
+Christopher Gudgeon haha
+Christopher Gudgeon bro. you don't even know bro.
Pft, here's the real solution:
r=0
boom a square with 0 area has the same area as a circle with a radius of 0. Ha.
Ummm....
R=0 is no circle
Christoporus Nicholas thats the point
Was that pun intentional?
Spaskiba a
A form of matter Don't know, but I'm sure it was *irrational* (get it? circle area) badam tss
Just imagine if you would have to pay Pythagoras for using his theroem...
Well, interesting, but there is some doubt that Pythagoras actually proved it.
@@aradhya_purohit no ,
Pythagoras did prove it but didn't discover it .
@@NihilistEmier yeah actually that's what I wanted to point out that it is not Pythagoras' theorem. Thanks btw for the correction.
An Indian mathematician is like a scientist from Ethiopia.
Well we wouldn't use it because it was wrong. I have no interest in describing the ratio between a circle's diameter and it's circumference as 3.2.
Mathematicians would've realized the mistake pretty quickly and just used another variable or some other definition. Engineers don't use flat earth physics and they wouldn't use 3.2
*when you say your password is the last five digits of pi*
wait a minute
hey whats your password
oh it's just [SYNTAX ERROR]
00032 ?
@@AuxenceF If pi were just 3.2000... then your password if it were the last five digits of pi would just be: 00000 lol
@@Ivan-yy4ng thats the joke
I love how happy James seems when he's telling any story
Edwin is the Fine Bros of 1897
made my day xD
+jpdude98 Haha
+jpdude98
HAHAHAH XDD =]]]]]] You made my day sir.
+jpdude98 top kek m8 I r8
3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286
208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481
117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233
786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006
606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146
951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962749
567351885752724891227938183011949129833673362440656643086021394946395224737190
702179860943702770539217176293176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827
785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923
542019956112129021960864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049
951059731732816096318595024459455346908302642522308253344685035261931188171010
003137838752886587533208381420617177669147303598253490428755468731159562863882
35378759375195778185778053217122680661300192787661119.../8
And i am a 3.14lot
Wait, squaring the circle is the first Numberphile video I watched! I have come full circle!
+rkrokberg Don't you mean full square?
+rkrokberg ...and now you're back to square one.
Piception
+rkrokberg
DAMN! SAME HERE!!
rkrokberg on a video about pi
3.14 - Are you threatening me Master Goodwin?
Goodwin - The senate will decide your fate
3.14 - I am the Senate!!!
It's been two years. HOW COME THIS ONLY HAS 75 LIKES???!!!!
@@JV-fo4uo 164 likes now.
Goodwin:not yet
3.14: It's treason then.
372 now
And my state has embarrassed me again, thanks Indiana.
We have to learn to own our own faults and learn from them. For instance, how many meteorologists has our state pounded into an insane asylum?
I'm just glad it wasn't Florida this time. Sorry Tyler. You guys can have a gaff this time.
Virat Kohli ironic
@@ViratKohli-jj3wj America bad
ikr
"Piguy32" just doesn't sound as cool...
Why not Piguy3
***** change it to piguy355113 cuz pi = 355/113
yiu yeung Kan Pi does not equal 355/113. It's irrational and can't be set as a ratio of a/b where a and b are rational.
+Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen Actually Pi is closer to 22/7.
Tim Ander Pi = 3.14159265...
355/113 = 3.14159292...
22/7 = 3.14285714...
355/113 matches to six decimal places; 22/7 to only two.
I know all of the digits of pi, i just forget which order they’re in
Yeah I also know the digits of Pi. I know the digits of any number, equation, any thing related to maths.
They are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 0.
@@Camp_RB Prodigy
@@currypenguin someone tell this guy about different bases
@@supernoodles908 numbers with different bases would still involve those numbers lol
@@peelysl
Not with bases larger than 10
I coded a small (and simple) physics program to emulate the basics of a pool table (well, the physics of its balls actually) and decided to try changing the value of Pi to 3.2 and the thing just went nuts!
Actually, the movement of the balls looked like it was being influenced by quantum physics!
Lol
Even if you rounded Pi up to two significant figures, it would be 3.1, not 3.2.
It would be 3.2 if you round it 'up'. Only 3.1 if you round it down
@@PastyMancer No, what you've shown is ceiling (as you said rounding up) but rounding is different
3.1492 -> 3.15 -> 3.2
@@nestor1208 pi is 3.141592 not 3.1492... And even if it was 3.1492, it would be rounded as 3.1
3.1415... to 2 s.f. is 3.1.
The hubris to think that after 2000 years, not only did you solve an unsolvable problem, but you did it because you are the only person in history to notice pi is 3.2...wow dude
pi is exactly three. EDIT: because I’m still getting comments 6 years later. My comment is a reference to an episode of the simpsons where professor frink was forced to loudly declare pi is exactly 3 to get the attention of his roused peers during a presentation.
If you assume that 1 is pi/3.... sure thing bro. GL rewriting all other constants to match it though.
It's a quote from The Simpsons which references this story
well if your in a pinch 3 will be better than nothig
That is just Pure evil!
4*
I think the scarier part, to be honest, is the attempt to patent pi. Obviously, even if it went through, it obviously wasn't pi, but... just imagine if there was legal precedent for patenting it.
He didn't try to patent pi, but that specific mathematical proof.
I'm not sure, the sources I can find seem to say he was trying to patent his methods for squaring the circle. Though I can't find any direct information on the patent application itself, or even what ended up happening to it.
They never said anything in the video about patents…
Theres a huge difference from patenting the solution to squaring the circle problem, and patenting Pi itself.
I mean, with all do respect, It’s USA, so we can assume that it was very nearly possible to have happened
At this point Ramanujan is my hero. He's been coming up in absolutely every numberphile video I've tried to watch
yeah we are proud of him 🙂
Why 3.2!?! Why not 3.14 or a simple 3.15 or something.... I get that he had to make it a constructible number but... why 3.2? That seems a bit much
Why not just 0
Michael Trethewey Because either 3.2 is rounding up of pi OR because 3.2 is easier to use in calculations than 3.14 \ 3.15.
DerpyGaming1 Except you wouldn't round up; you would round down. It should be 3.1
But it isn't.
+Michael Trethewey Man... screw decimals, just use 3
In base π, π is 10... I wonder what it would look like in base √5.
+jminizimet 10.20000101200100002001001.....
What's Pi in Base 6, please?
+Razvan 3.050330051415124105...
Senary is your favorite base?
My favorite base is base 1.
Gwamma Nutsi in base ten (X), ten is 10
1 is one (I) in any base.
The guy that said pi=3.2 is so evil! How dare you put tax on a mathematical idea!
Got what he deserved, i.e. ridicule.
😂
I've seen a t-shirt with e=π=3.
*Big oof*
Нестор Капленко it's called the "fundamental theorem of engineering"
welcome to america. money money money.
Yeah...I reside in the great state of Indiana. I was in my second semester of undergraduate in mathematics when one of my calc profs told us this story. He is a mathematical historian on the side and one of his electives is on the history of mathematics. In defense of Indiana and America, Dr Waldo ,who educated the Senate and stopped the bill, was from Purdue University.
You don't have to defend your state. There are plenty of moonbats everywhere.
John_Jackson
@@johnjackson9767 idk man, 1897 but still for them to pass a Bill....I'd be kinda embarrassed too
Where's Dr. Waldo buried?
James Grime has the shiniest cheeks of any mathematician.
He has luminous singularities of transcript light upon his spherical jaw musclar case. I regret commenting this.
O^-^O
The fact that the video is on 3.2 mil views (for now) is poetic
poetic for some time
"pi is a social construct"
Math as a whole
numbers are
Do not forget racist.
I identify as pi
all numbers are just human constructs
Why would they change math? Math. Is. Math!
no, it's 'maths'
Thats What he did ... Changed math to math factorial
is this an incredibles 2 reference? 😭
it just a tool, you can change
This reminds me of something I read a while back about, I think it was an American high school teacher, who claimed he solved the problem of dividing by zero by inventing a constant with the value 1/0... BRILLIANT!
Oh Indiana, you embarrass yourself again...
xD
At least they don't have a law that prohibits having sexual intercourse with a porcupine, do they, Florida?
computo2000 Or how about a law that says it's illegal to fart in public restrooms after 6 PM on Thursdays. Your move, Florida.
Come on, I live in Indiana!
Same, lol
I present to you the James Grime Inch: 4:01
Alfonso J. Ramos If you compare it to the size that he mentioned before the inch, an inch would be that small maybe even smaller.
Alfonso J. Ramos is
The _Grinch_
@@morphmu I am so sorry this comment didn't make it
He might not have found a solution for squaring the circle, but at least he found Waldo.
Love this story, read about it in a book about pi years ago:) They were so lucky to have mathematician there stopping by.
In my native tongue "squaring the circle" actually is equal to Sisyphus Work.
Interesting. In English "to square the circle" is sometimes used to mean "to find a way to make seemingly contradictory things be congruent"
As an engineer student i give you 3 and not 1 more!
1:02Facts and mathematical theorems can't be copyrighted.
In America it seems it can be
+Chef Me They can't. At least not now.
I live in Indiana and once we tried to tried to make schools teach pi as equal to 3 instead of 3.14 and also in schools the acceleration due to gravity is sometimes taught as 10 m/s^2 instead of 9.8 m/s^2
Norwegian schools teach _g_ = 9.81 m/s^2, but tell the pupils to use _g_ ≈ 10 for any mental calculations.
Difference is though, g is barely a constant
Terry Pratchett wrote a whole novel about the dangers of redefining Pi. Going Postal
Don't be embarrassed for the state of Indiana. Every state, and every nation has far worse things to be embarrassed about. As a general rule, no government should ever make official declarations of scientific (or mathematical) facts. Scientific truth can take care of itself. Government "enforcement" of scientific truth will only lead to trouble - anything from completely false ideas, all the way to outright acts of horrible evil.
separation of science and state
Yes I really despise governments and those who run it. Politicians and lawmakers usually don't care about anything but money and power.
Hillary for Prison 2k16
Prison for people who can't write the date properly.
PhilBagels Like Eugenics... yikes.
I gotta love living in Indiana. We're always in the news somewhere
That's true, especially now that Pence is the VP.
the numbers of views this video has right now is 3.14 million
Not knowing what "squaring the circle" was before this video, I must admit I had to look it up elsewhere to really understand. In the video, it is explained as "finding" a square and circle of the same area. Which sounds like you could just say, "the circle has a radius of n and the square has a width of n*pi^(1/2). Solved. But instead, the challenge is to construct it with a compass and straight edge, which is of course a much different type of challenge. It could be that the language you used conveyed that and I just don't know it, but on first brush it seems like an important detail may have been left out.
I don't think a law in Indiana would be that relevant for the rest of the world.
They said that it would be patented everywhere but Indiana
Not outside US
You think it was relevant in other countries?
@@bradirv State laws can't apply to the whole nation. If New York passes a law that New York is the only state allowed to say "kerfuffle," it does absolutely nothing, because other states don't follow the laws of New York.
This is by far the best comment section I've come across so far and I did not expect to find it here
Was it Edwin or Edward?
+Henrik Myrhaug His name was Edward but people called him Edwin.
Wardwin
Edward Goodwin = Edwin
Edlost
Edwad
Now I wanna know the math puns they used to mock him so badly.
Come on guys. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He was just... Cutting corners!
Sure, sure. But he's still a Square.
oh no
@@watamidoing8131 yeah, I mean he had to go square 1 by getting taught.
He told the police about his accomplices in this scheme so they, too, could be rounded up.
"What's one fun fact about your state?"
" *WELL* "
3:58 Classic Parker Square!
You deserve to be higher!
3:48 I guess you could call it a Parker Square.
1:19 - "How kind of him"
shots fired
As a Hoosier I can honestly say this is not that crazy when compared with some of the other whacky stuff that has been passed into law here
Hey, I am an Indiana native, and if we say Pi is equal to 3.2, then by God, that is what it equals. If you don't like it, we'll stop letting you in to watch the Indy 500!
Its oddly satisfying as an American listing to a British man expelling how bills are passed in the House and the Senate
Good thing it was in Indiana. If it happened here in Texas, there would be no stopping it.
Probably not, but we're not too far from doing something so insane over here!~
Unless it was in Austin, if it happened in Austin, they would have not passed it, in favor of a different bill that declares that pi and all math is an oppressive tool of the patriarchy.
@@medexamtoolscom Ha, my thoughts exactly.
I often use 22/7 or 355/113 as approximations if i don't have a calculator around.. especially 355/133 is quite accurate
I love storytime with Dr. James
In school I was told that pi was 22/7 so of course I tried to find an exact value
I found the recurring decimals 3.142857142857… by doing long division and I was really proud of myself until I realised that pi is not 22/7
I was also told that e=19/7
I don’t know why they liked 7 so much
Approximation!
You can try to regulate maths but it will end in tears ; p
It's a sin
+Osmorosvo Edwin was approaching this from the wrong angle.
sitearm mathS? With an s?
Yes, maths. Short from mathematics. It's a British English thing.
That's clearly Trotsky
I almost had a heartattack when I saw the thumbnail
2:30 I bet he heard "I've finally found Waldo!"
2:24, Waldo has finally been found!
Coming back 8 years later to say that the video now has 3.2M views
could've only happened in murica
To be fair if you understood US politics in the late 19th century, corruption was a big thing so obviously someone just bribed people to pass the bill along.
Wow. I am so glad we got past that *snark*.
Mad Sloth yeah I hate that a ton of Americans are dumbasses
Btw I am american
SANB SPs the irony though you said I am american but it is supposed to be I am an American
Dylan McDowell I am American works as well
That is absolutely amazing!
It really satisfies me, that this video has 3.1M views at the moment
SO GLAD THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN, I wouldn't be able to say 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510 anymore
Same but in my case to 160dp
+Riley Voss I've memorized it to 3.141592653589793238462643383279
3.1415926535897932384626433832950 ;)
+John McGovern yes, I have remembered 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716239932718
+John McGovern Now do it in dozenal, hexadecimal, vigesimal, etc. etc.
Can we get a transcript of those math puns? They saved stenography, I mean, they had to, right?
Engineers meanwhile: We’ll just call pi 3 for this.....
My favorite approximation of pi is 355/113
My favourite is ∞/∞
Lucien Grondin I like the cube root of 31
GamerGeek no...
My favourite is tan(90)
How about e^pi - 20?
And so the Waldo franchise was born
But where is he?
I've heard this story multiple times and it still astonishes me to this day.
Yet again, my state embarrasses me... Damnit Indiana...
Time to move. Save the next generation :-)
Turn weakness into advantage, all the rest should be embarrassed for not having such a story :)
Place doesn't mean anything, he was just a person like that.
USA: i have corona
Indiana is a part of the US
If anybody asks, 144029661/45846065 < pi < 355/113, just so you know.
I'm gonna use 3.2 from now on. If you can't get it exact anyway, might as well round it up.
Please solve those rubix cubes in the background
Erwin Broekhoven Rubik's cubes*
Why... is.. your... cube... UNSOLVED!?!?!? TRAITOR!!!
Perhaps, since this video is related to squaring the circle, he wanted to make a subtle reference to another impossible ancient Greek problem - doubling the cube.
Given a cube, is it always possible to construct a cube with exactly twice the volume? It turns out that it is impossible. There exist cubes which cannot be doubled using the ancient Greek methods.
So maybe his unsolved Rubix cube was a reference to how one cannot "solve" the problem of doubling the cube ;)
@@MuffinsAPlenty you can easily solve it the area of the cube is 0
@@MuffinsAPlenty That wall of text also mentions him having a 'proof' of solving this problem, and setting the diagonal of a unit square = root(2) = 10/7
As well as trisecting an angle.
It does not surprise me. It seems like impossibility results in mathematics tend to draw out the most mind-numbingly bad arguments from some people.
Sup cuber
Speaks volumes about that guy. He was so confident that he could solve a problem which had been mathematically proven to be impossible. And didn’t even know the correct value of pi
Waiting to get paid royalties every time someone uses a proof you created? That might be the most american thing I've ever heard.
Very interesting. At some point, in the last few decades, I recall hearing that Indiana had just passed such a law, not a hundred years prior. It didn't strike me as important at the time, and I'm pretty sure it was pre-internet, anyway. I wish I could remember the source. Obviously, whoever it was spreading this disinformation was entirely out of their depth.
THIS GUY IS A GENIUS! DESERVES AN AWARD!
One of the most ridiculous stories of all time. Yes, only in Murica.
+Kanishka Ray it really is a perfect microcosm of the ol' Murica, isn't it?
And an american made everything better again. ^
Doing jokes about this, is as easy as pi
I would love to see a recreation of the politicians making fun and jokes for a half hour.
Common core is the reason teenagers don't want to become mathematicians
As a teenager, I agree
The video has 3.2 million views rn
fundamental properties of numbers being copyrighted is like "you are not allowed to use gravity unless you pay me". WTF.
hmm. the current view count is *3.2* million.
Lol
"Its a true story and its absolutely crazy"
Joey diaz: "back in '89..."
✓ Reads the Title
✓ Looked for the published date and it's not 1 April
✓ Continues to watch the video
3.2 shall henceforth be known as "American Pi"
That's just fantastic.
At that time it was probably very difficult to explain rational numbers to the masses, so yes 32/10 is good approach. I really think 22/7 was the best close to the true discovery of the all time Pi calculations.
And we have 3.2 million views for this video currently. Absolute perfect.
Lost my faith in humanity...
3:15 regained it...
Missed opportunity for you to quote timestamp 3:14.
@@carultch Dammit.
@@XenophonSoulis Δαμμιτ ινδεεδ.
@@XenophonSoulis did u hear they proved that the universe curvature expansion is tending towards pi=3.15. in 67 trillion years, you will be right
@@DrKaii Pi is and will always be 3.14...
Where's Waldo?
In an Indiana courthouse.
I really like this channel and its content. :-)
3.141592653..... wait a minute I'm not supposed to be commenting this. It's useless to know it.
3 and a bit is enough
3.2 yo
I learned 400 decimals of Pi, super useful for making people think you're crazy :P
Yeah but I learnt that the square root of pi is 1.772453851 which is far more useless
3.14159365358979323846264338
When you're watching math videos that were uploaded 5 years ago you should really go to bed....
stop calling me o-!
💤💤
The fact that this video has (nearly) 3.2 million views is... astonishing
This is why politicians shouldn't be in charge of anything, lol.
Edwin was born too early
He could have been the CEO of Apple.
Everyone : Pi is infinite!
Some guy : It's 3.2!
Me : Pi is between 3 and 4 since the only whole number is 3.
2:41 = savage