**The pi lie (or quantum uncertainty)
**
What is up with this bizarre constant which cannot be expressed in a finite series completely with operators (as of yet anyhow)?
I’m referring to pi: This constant of the circle measuraments; the constant of angular measurements within the context of an abstracted circular shape (or rather any closed one sided shape).
There’s a funny thing about this pi:
For any given circle drawn, the number of circumfrances solvable within the line used to represent that circle are infinite.
This can be proven. How are we so sure we’ve determined a constant from a set of infinite variation for each expression? That seems a bit presumptious, doesn’t it?
How much more inductive can one get? It’s like standing on a pile of infinitely stacked needles and only selecting one needle at a time to prove that every needle in the stack is exactly the same, when we already know that the stack is infinite! We haven’t found anything to compare pi to; to translate it against, to set it apart from anything else.
If pi could only be compared against something esle, but it can’t; we already know that it only works when the circle isn’t there.
That’s not very rigorous logic! It’s no better or different than “the god of the gaps” - the bane of rational deduction. Yet we continue to use it, to teach it, to mark the intelligence of other individuals by ‘correctly’ answering a question on a test which disproves itself. Are we trying to create stupid people?
If the stack is known to be infinite, and the combinations of operators to discern this is hypothesized as potentially infinite; then why does pi work? Is the entire symbol irrational? Why do we bother with this symbol? Because it works? That’s not very satisfactory; all kinds of irrational things end up working because they confuse people about motive and intent. We as humans seem to be in a process of rationalizing everything so that we can communicate a purpose to be. Yet instead of pi being an open question for every student, it is taught as a closed asnwer; where students are graded upon their ability to force themselves into ‘buying it’.
Is it possible that students who fail a geometry or trig or calculus exam are brighter than those who ace it? By drawing the circle, are we making our students dumb in the sense that an observer effects the outcome of a photon no matter their best intention?
I suggest that we are. So, why continue to teach pi?
-Justhink