Tau vs Pi

[Guy1]

Pretty simple question. Do you prefer Tau, or Pi? I'm more of a Tau guy myself. It makes things like Trig so much easier to grasp.

If you have no idea what I'm going on about, here is a totally unbiased, hour-long explanation:

No, really, pi is wrong: The Tau Manifesto by Michael Hartl - YouTube!

 

[Elendur]

Using pi due to it being the accepted standard but tau sure looks easier, since it'd short down some constant usage.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Pretty simple question. Do you prefer Tau, or Pi?

I prefer pi, as it's standard.

While tau makes the mathematics a smidgen simpler, it doesn't do anything fundamentally different - instead of tau radians in a circle, you have 2pi radians. You simple double or halve to go from one to the other, and that's pretty much it.

It's like advocating Esperanto as the international lingua franca - sure, it's more logical and rational, but as the status quo is English, you're just creating unnecessary work for yourself and you only end up coming off as a tad pretentious.

I'm more of a Tau guy myself. It makes things like Trig so much easier to grasp.

Does it, though?

 

[Guy1]

Does it, though?

Clearly it does something right. And idiot like myself who's currently failing pre-calculus gained an intuitive understanding of sines and cosines in a matter of minutes thanks to that. Granted I still probably can't do problems involving these, but then again I never really tried to learn anything beyond this.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Clearly it does something right. And idiot like myself who's currently failing pre-calculus gained an intuitive understanding of sines and cosines in a matter of minutes thanks to that. Granted I still probably can't do problems involving these, but then again I never really tried to learn anything beyond this.

If learning about tau has helping you understand trigonometric functions, that's great However, I can't help but wonder if it's really down to tau, or if it's the novel way that tau is taught. Perhaps you were never taught how 2π radians is derived, but learning about tau taught you this information and so helped you understand trig - tau itself isn't that important.

Then again, maybe it is, and if its, that's great... but I'll always be a pi-man myself

 

[Guy1]

If learning about tau has helping you understand trigonometric functions, that's great However, I can't help but wonder if it's really down to tau, or if it's the novel way that tau is taught. Perhaps you were never taught how 2π radians is derived, but learning about tau taught you this information and so helped you understand trig - tau itself isn't that important.

Then again, maybe it is, and if its, that's great... but I'll always be a pi-man myself

Maybe a bit of both. I'd run into sines and the like before but it had never really stuck with me. When I was shown how the constant is used to derive the values on the unitary circle (yet another first) it stuck. Suddenly you could put the constant over a particular number in a fraction and have exactly how far along the circle you travel. No multiplying or dividing by two, no cancelling- just straight up t/8= 1/8 the way around the circle.

 

[Michael]

If learning about tau has helping you understand trigonometric functions, that's great However, I can't help but wonder if it's really down to tau, or if it's the novel way that tau is taught. Perhaps you were never taught how 2π radians is derived, but learning about tau taught you this information and so helped you understand trig - tau itself isn't that important.

Then again, maybe it is, and if its, that's great... but I'll always be a pi-man myself

It's definitely hard to change once you've gotten used to pi (or any perspective), but I can see how a tau perspective might make teaching trig to new students a lot easier IMO.

 

[BluhdoftheLamb]

I prefer pi - blueberry is the best!

 

[Michael]

Pi Is (still) Wrong. - YouTube

FYI, tThe "shorter" version by Vi Hart is also very entertaining and done quite well in terms of demonstrating the simplicity of converting to Tau orientation, and the silliness is of using Pi.

 

[Guy1]

Pi Is (still) Wrong. - YouTube

FYI, tThe "shorter" version by Vi Hart is also very entertaining and done quite well in terms of demonstrating the simplicity of converting to Tau orientation, and the silliness is of using Pi.

Coincidentally, this is the video that taught me sines.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Pi Is (still) Wrong. - YouTube

FYI, tThe "shorter" version by Vi Hart is also very entertaining and done quite well in terms of demonstrating the simplicity of converting to Tau orientation, and the silliness is of using Pi.

And of course there are those who claim that tau is wrong too:

Pi may be wrong, but so is Tau! - YouTube

Please forgive his pronunciation of "eta", he is British after all

 

[Guy1]

And of course there are those who claim that tau is wrong too:

Pi may be wrong, but so is Tau! - YouTube

Please forgive his pronunciation of "eta", he is British after all

How dare you post such a blasphemous video on this thread?!

 

[Bungle_Bear]

Please forgive his pronunciation of "eta", he is British after all

Why would you need to forgive correct pronunciation? Oh that's right, because mathematicians don't use the correct pronunciation

Greek Alphabet - YouTube

 

[Standing_Ultraviolet]

It's like advocating Esperanto as the international lingua franca - sure, it's more logical and rational, but as the status quo is English, you're just creating unnecessary work for yourself and you only end up coming off as a tad pretentious.

Pretty much this. Sometimes, illogical and irrational things are so much a part of the way the world works that they're just not going to change anytime soon.

Although, as an interesting side note, learning Esperanto as a first second language is actually a fairly good idea. It lets you get the basics of thinking about how language works down with a system that is entirely constructed and therefore entirely logical. It only takes a fraction of the time of learning a natural language, probably because you don't have to deal with the bizarre way that languages develop in the real world (why does the day make sun, Spanish? Why must you torment me like this?). Getting through learning that first non-native tongue makes learning the second one go faster.

So, yeah, maybe Tau is good for helping people understand trigonometry because it helps you to get the underlying mathematics. Makes it even more similar to Esperanto

 

[Michael]

So, yeah, maybe Tau is good for helping people understand trigonometry because it helps you to get the underlying mathematics. Makes it even more similar to Esperanto

The fact that Tau makes trigonometry easier to understand is worth it IMO. It also seems more in alignment with GR when looking for the distance between objects, not the orbit diameter.