From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Thu Jun 05 2003 - 12:27:55 EDT
Actually, I think the Indiana legislature proposal claimed pi was 4. If I remember correctly, it was promoted as producing much more lumber out of a log than the standard value. It was not based on the Biblical text in any way. The History of Pi is at home, though. As the author would gladly have seized on a chance to attack any attempt at using I Kings as a guide to pi, it seems safe to assume that there is no evidence for such a mistake.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2003 11:33:02 -0700
>
>On Wed, 4 Jun 2003 13:05:04 -0400 "bivalve"
><bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com> writes [in part]:
>> Several other possible explanations arise. One possibility is that
>> you have succumbed to atheistic or pagan mathematical teaching and
>> that pi really is three. As far as I know, no one has seriously
>> promoted this view, though atheists think this would be in keeping
>> with young-earth style literalism.
>>
>There was, many years ago, an offer to the Indiana Legislature which
>would license the state's use of the discovery that the value of pi is 3
>without charge. All others would have to pay to use the copyrighted
>value. I read the original "proof" many years ago. I recall that it was
>so convoluted that the value was apparently both 3 and something else
>that clearly was not transcendental. A bill was introduced and came close
>to passing--probably would have passed had not a professor from Indian U.
>been in town at the time.
>Dave
>
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