Just when you think it’s safe to go back to mathematics, you discover a holy war against pi:
Tau Day revellers suggest a constant called tau should take its place: twice as large as pi, or about 6.28 — hence the 28 June celebration.
Tau proponents say that for many problems in maths, tau makes more sense and makes calculations easier.
Not all fans of maths agree, however, and pi’s rich history means it will be a difficult number to unseat.
“I like to describe myself as the world’s leading anti-pi propagandist,” said Michael Hartl, an educator and former theoretical physicist.
“When I say pi is wrong, it doesn’t have any flaws in its definition — it is what you think it is, a ratio of circumference to diameter. But circles are not about diameters, they’re about radii; circles are the set of all the points a given distance — a radius — from the centre,” Dr Hartl explained to BBC News.
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Dr Hartl is passionate about the effort, but even he is surprised by the fervent nature of some tau adherents.
“What’s amazing is the ‘conversion experience’: people find themselves almost violently angry at pi. They feel like they’ve been lied to their whole lives, so it’s amazing how many people express their displeasure with pi in the strongest possible terms — often involving profanity.
“I don’t condone any actual violence — that would be really bizarre, wouldn’t it?”
