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September 16th 04, 12:15 PM
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Tim Wescott wrote: Roy Lewallen wrote: Gary S. wrote: On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 20:09:55 GMT, "Tom Donaly" wrote: They (the politicians) were relying on that vast storehouse of scientific information, the Bible, for their instruction. 73, Tom Donaly, KA6RUH I missed that part. Guess it would be in the Book of Numbers. . . . Actually, it's in I Kings vii.23 and II Chronicles iv.2: "Also, he made a molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and five cubits the height thereof; and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." In _A History of Pi_ by Petr Beckmann, the author states (p. 174) that "There is a story about some American legislature having considered a bill to legislate, for religious reasons, the biblical value of pi = 3. I have found no confirmation of this story; very probably it grew out of an episode that actually took place in the State Legislature of Indiana in 1897." He describes the incident. . . A bill was introduced in the Indiana House in 1897 which said in the preamble: "A bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the legislature in 1897." In Section 1, the value of pi is effectively declared to be about 9.2. In Section 2, it's said to be exactly 3.2. The bill was referred ["perhaps symbolically", muses Beckmann] to the House Committee on Swamp Lands, which passed it to the Committee of Education, which reported it back to the House "with recommendation that said bill do pass." On Feb. 5, 1897, the Indiana House passed it unanimously. A charitable person would speculate that, like our current legislators and the more recent Patriot Act, they just didn't trouble themselves to read it before voting. It was saved from passage by the Senate by the intervention of a Purdue math professor named Waldo who, horrified when learning about it, coached the senators. History repeats itself. Now political interests are being used to modify, distort, ignore, and contradict scientific findings. And Kansas is once again attempting to legislate against the teaching of evolution. Some things never change. Roy Lewallen, W7EL In some states (Oregon included, IIRC), pi _is_ legally equal to three -- at least for the purposes of calculating the number of board feet in a log, and most likely as an informed decision to make calculation easier. -- Tim Wescott Wescott Design Services http://www.wescottdesign.com PI - 3 = Sawdust Cheers, JLS |
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