219
TIL that Indiana’s House of Representatives once unanimously passed a bill to make Pi exactly 3.2
(www.scientificamerican.com)
Yeah, fuck maths!
this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
219 points (99.1% liked)
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I need a shower after that headline
They didn’t even round to the closet decimal. 3.1 is closer to pi than 3.2.
All the numbers after the 3.1 I bet they thought it made it bigger
Well, there are a lot of them...
...uh oh
They had no idea they couldn't legislate math and force it to obey. You are crediting them with an overabundance of brain function in relation to what evidence suggests.
they couldn’t legislate math and force it to obey
They can legislate education and enforce the curriculum through hiring of staff and purchasing of educational material. That said, this isn't what was at issue with the legislation.
You are crediting them with an overabundance of brain function
In my personal experience as a kid who took Calculus and Physics, we were never really expected to use more precision than 3.14 for grading purposes.
Unless you're getting into a professional degree of engineering or foundational mathematics, there's no notable utility in establishing Pi past the first decimal or three.
If you get into the actual meat of the article
In 1894 physician and mathematical dabbler Edward J. Goodwin believed he had found one. He felt so proud of his discovery that, in 1897, he drew up a bill for his home state of Indiana to enshrine what he thought was a mathematical proof into law. In exchange, he would allow the state to use his proof without paying royalties. At least three major red flags should have prompted lawmakers to regard Goodwin with skepticism. Math research has no norm about charging royalties or precedent for legally ratifying theorems, and the supposed proof was nonsense. Among other errors, it claimed that pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, is 3.2 rather than the well-established 3.14159.... Yet, in a bizarre legislative oversight, the Indiana House of Representatives passed the bill in a unanimous vote.
This is incredibly dated news and largely a commentary on how easily a state legislature will rubber stamp a bill without reading the fine print.
My first thought as well
Because it was a mistake in a proof, not legislation aimed to change pi
Reject π! Embrace τ! The superior constant!
How the hell you make that
Probably with their pie cutter.
Upsetting...
Copy and pasted from the Tau page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_(mathematics)
I was expecting mechs and fish people.
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
if you make a π but then don't do the | then you get τ
Godless heathens!
Pi is exactly 3, God said so in the Bible (1 Kings 7:23)
Pretty close though eh, one or two cubits off, ~96% accurate. Just like the rest of the bible, right?
Assuming we are talking about historical accuracy and not theological accuracy (whatever that is), I’m not sure how low the number is, but it’s certainly less than half of 96%, especially the Old Testament
I can sort of answer this for you. The process of writing the old testament started in 537BCE and the end of the Babylonnian exile.
This is when Monotheism entered the story as well.
Anything before Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon is suspicious, and anything before Solomon is fully made up.
Agreed re: Solomon. My sense is that a lot of it was compiled during Josiah’s reign but my knowledge of the topic is sparse. Are you familiar with the theory that the David story is post hoc propaganda after David Coup’d Saul, and the David & Bathsheba story was fabricated as propaganda to legitimize Solomon after he coup’d David?
I’m certainly over simplifying.
I mostly came across it all from studying Cyrus the Great, the King of Kings, and then focused on the exile, or captivity or however you want to call it.
The Neo-Babylonians started conquering Judah in about 600BCE, they burned Jerusalem, and destroyed Solomon's Temple in 587.
The Babylonians were pretty thorough in destroying any religious icons or texts of their new slaves, which included priests and nobles who knew how to read, which was useful to the Babylonians.
This is how Babylonian creation myths ended up making cameos in the new Hebrew bible written from scraps and invention after Cyrus freed the slaves of Babylon as a kind of last fuck you to the city as he declared himself King of Babylon. (or a way to make said slaves love him)
I’m really interested in studying Cyrus the Great, I just got distracted by biblical history as a fixation.
Random Cyrus-related fact: David Koresh of the Waco Branch Davidians changed his last name from Howell to Koresh which is the biblical name for Cyrus.
A good intro to Cyrus the Great might be Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. The King of Kings series. It's only, what, 16 hours or so long.
The guy can talk, but he also lists his sources, which are also good jumping off points.
I am a huge fan of Dan and it’s his series that made me feel like I need to learn more about Cyrus.
An interesting feature of growing up an evangelical Christian, at least for me, is the sense that biblical history is somehow walled off from secular history. Obviously places and figures from that time are mentioned, but there is no sense of continuity. I have long been interested in history but since deconstructing I am now almost obsessed with reevaluating my knowledge of what was actually going on in the world, and in greater Canaan during the time of the bible.
Re-reading and actually studying the bible as the library it is, and reading it in its historical context as I gradually plug it in to my existing understanding of history is an incredibly rewarding experience. And I credit Dan Carlin in large part with my persistent fascination with history.
Part of the reason why biblical history and secular history don't line up is that yeah, the biblical history didn't exist before 537BCE. That and religious propaganda.
Yep it makes perfect sense in hindsight. It doesn’t actually hook onto history correctly. When you’re presupposing the the bible is inerrant and univocal, you just avoid reconciling certain things.
I was lucky to not have a religious upbringing despite the efforts of one of my parents. The other was a bit of a self identifying heathen.
It was a point of conflict.
Fuggit.
This is perfectly on brand
This kind of anti-scientific bullshit could only happen in the U.S.A.
It was the late 1800’s. Dumb shit wasn’t in short supply in the world.
Problem is, I could also see Trump’s WWE education secretary pushing for this in 2026.
The fact that it is 100% plausible today is the worrying part.
Yes I was fully expecting the details to be "It was a Republican-sponsored bill in 1992" or similar. It's just too damn believable.
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Its an interesting story but a bit misrepresented. Here's how the post title is misrepresenting the story but it misses lots of the details:
Here’s the problem that has consumed ancient Greek mathematicians and countless others: given a circle, construct a square with the same area as it using only a compass and straightedge.
In 1894 physician and mathematical dabbler Edward J. Goodwin believed he had found [a proof]
he would allow the state to use his proof without paying royalties
The proof made a mistake that set the value of pi to 3.2
The article points out it was an odd piece of legislation because royalties aren't charged for proofs but doesn't really make clear what this proof was going to be used for. Just:
they seemed confused about the bill’s contents and played hot potato with it, tossing it to the Committee on Canals, which flung it over to the Committee on Education. They held three formal readings of the bill before voting
if they repeal the laws of gravity i would consider visiting
This is why you don't gut the educational system.
On the same scientific level as the age verification inside the OS...
Engineer approved.
engineer here, i just type PI() and the computer decides what that means
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Math is math...
This kind of people are making laws about technology, something they don't understand at all, just like π.
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