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Business of Engineering

Pi is 3.2, not 3.14159... according to Indiana House Bill 246

Publicado por Cabe Atwell en Business of Engineering el 14-mar-2018 17:24:00

Goodwin's model circle as described in section 2 of the bill. It has a diameter of 10 and a stated circumference of "32" (not
31.4159~); the chord of 90° has length stated as "7" (not 7.0710~). (via Wiki)
 
Edward J. Goodwin believed he successfully squared the circle and attempted to get it validated by turning it into an Indiana
State law in 1897.
 
Indiana Pi bill, House Bill 246 , reads as follows:
 
"The diameter employed as the linear unit according to the present rule in computing the circle's area is entirely wrong as it
represents the circle's area one and one-fifth times the area of a square whose perimeter is equal to the circumference of the
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circle... the rule in present use fails to work both ways mathematically, it should be discarded as wholly wanting and misleading
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The bill went from the Indiana House of Representatives to the Committee on Swamplands, where it could “find a deserving
grave .” Then it was transferred to the Committee on Education, where the bill passed.
 

As the bill was on its way to the Indiana Senate to become a law, it was intercepted by Purdue University Professor C. A. Waldo,
who dissected it and proved it wrong. The problem was that Goodwin’s bill gave a few different values for Pi, 4 in the beginning
and 3.2 in the end of the bill.
It was almost passed as a law. It was shot down fairly quickly in the Senate not because they could prove it mathematically, but
after one senator observed that the General Assembly lacked the power to define mathematical truth.
 
That is when the fun began.
 
Indianapolis News article from February 13, 1897 , showed that the Senators made fun of it for about a half hour before
rejecting the bill altogether. The article states:
 
“...the bill was Enbrought
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and made fun of. The Senators made bad puns about it, ridiculed it and laughed over it. The fun lasted
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half an hour. Senator Hubbell said that it was not meet for the Senate, which was costing the State $250 a day, to waste its time
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in such sobre
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reading thelaleading newspapers of Chicago and the East, he found that the Indiana State
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Legislature had laid itself open to ridicule by the action already taken on the bill. He thought consideration of such a proposition
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was not dignified or worthy of the Senate. He moved the indefinite postponement of the bill, and the motion carried.”
 Thus ending Goodwin’s attempt establishing his mathematical truth by legislative fiat.
 
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909 Vistas Etiquetas: legislation, law, pi, cabeatwell, pi day, fun fact

       

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genebren 14-mar-2018 17:42

Interesting article.  Mathematicians not politicians should debate maters of mathematical theories.  Politicians have much more important
issues to debate, like here it Texas, where they spend way too much time trying to decide who should use which bathrooms and who should
not.
 
Gene

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