this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Science Memes

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(page 2) 41 comments
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Not true. If you define the circumference in terms of pi, you can define the circumference exactly.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Nasa uses 15 digits of pi for solar system travel. And 42 digits is enough to calculate the entire universe to atomic accuracy

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Not if your diameter is d/pi. Then your circumference is d, where d > 0.

Check mate atheists.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, calling pi infinite makes me wanna cry, too.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And you can't trust anything calculated with an imaginary number. Common guys, it's right there. It's imaginary like the, totally not AI, person I'm pretending to be.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

The circumference of a circle with a diameter of 1 cm is exactly π cm. There you have it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Easy. Take a wire that is exactly 1 meter long. Form a circle from the wire. The circumference of that circle is 1 meter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (9 children)

"exactly"

uh huh. and how are you measuring that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I don't have to measure it. I stick under glass and define it as the standard which all other measurements are derived from.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now the engineers and/or scientists are crying

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Who said Pi is infinite? If we take Pi as base unit, it is exactly 1. No fraction, perfectly round.

Now everything else requires an infinite precision.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pi = 4! = 4×3×2 = 24

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Omfg why can’t I figure out why this does not work. Help me pls

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because you never make a circle. You just make a polygon with a perimeter of four and an infinite number of sides as the number of sides approaches infinity.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it's because no matter how many corners you cut it's still an approximation of the circumference. There's just an infinite amount of corners that sticks out

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s just an infinite amount of corners that sticks out

Yes. And that means that it is not an approximation of the circumference.

But it approximates the area of the circle.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

True, thanks for the correction

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

It's a fractal problem, even if you repeat the cutting until infinite, there are still a roughness with little triangles which you must add to Pi, there are no difference between image 4 and 5, the triangles are still there, smaller but more. But it's a nice illusion.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The lines in this are askew and it's mildly annoying

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

They're there to askew why the logic doesn't work.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Bah, the universe is too messy and disordered to be worth the trouble

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (6 children)

More likely a mathematician would correct you instead of crying. Pi is not infinite, its decimal expansion is infinite!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The actual punchline here should have been “there is no known equation to calculate the exact perimeter of an ellipse”, then sucking tears from an astrophysicist

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Try it when you find some physicist that cares about exact values. Or when you see pigs flying over your head, both are about as likely.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Would go well with my former teacher's point-shaped cows.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

This was my first thought and then I realized I had been nerd sniped.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Plus even that isn't enough: 10/3 has an infinite decimal expansion (in base 10 at least) too, but if π = 10/3, you'd be able to find exact circumferences. Its irrationality is what makes it relevant to this joke.

A mathematician is also perfectly happy with answers like "4π" as exact.

Plus what's to stop you from having a rational circumference but irrational radius?

Writing this, I feel like I might have accidentally proved your point.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the correct answer. Pi is known. What it's decimal expansion looks like is irrelevant. It's 1 in base Pi.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Yup, similar to the square root of two and Euler's number.

These are numbers defined by their properties and not their exact values. In fact, we have imaginary numbers that don't have values and yet are still extremely useful because of their defined properties.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Its decimal expansion is finite in the base pi.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No 10. 1 is the same number in any base.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's say you got a circle with radius 1/π...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

came here for this

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