That’s right! By default, all circles are straight lines in an infinitly small convergence. Existence, or the mere placement of masses causes the dillusion that space between the converged lines has a finite value above 0 when in fact this space is and will always be 0. Only things of mass, such as humans, can be deceived while all other things don’t exist. Therefor pi is just a measurement on how bent our visions really are from our straight but doped reality.
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
As far as the original post, all I can express is a sense of confusion, and how better to show it than with one of the emoticons provided by the wonderful makers of the vBulletin message board software?
On the other hand, I still maintain that Neil Basescu’s criticism of Cecil at that link is unfounded, and Cecil caved too early. As near as I can tell, Neil’s calculations are off.
That’s right! By default, all circles are straight lines in an infinitly small convergence. Existence, or the mere
placement of masses causes the dillusion that space between the converged lines has a finite value above 0 when in fact this space is and will always be 0. Only things of mass, such as humans, can be deceived while all other things don’t exist. Therefor pi is just a measurement on how bent our visions really are from our straight but doped reality.**
I’ll admit math was never my best subject but… you seem to be giving a label to a pure number. Pi is the ratio between a circle’s circumference and its diameter.
And straightdope’s comment about Only things of mass, such as humans,… seems to mix Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry.
If the OP could explain his above rantings, I’d be much obliged. Circles are, by definition, not straight. They are single-edged networks without nodes. A line segment is a single-edged network with two nodes. A line, as in an infinite line in the Euclidian sense, is another single-edged network without nodes. However, a circle can be viewed as a finite whole (it bounds a finite area), whereas a line can only be suggested (it bounds an infinite area). This is because the circle is recursive, meaning that it meets itself. A recursive object cannot be straight. Therefore, a circle is not straight. (Never thought I’d have to prove that. :D)
