/sci/ - Science & Math

Pi what? You can't have a length of 3. It needs to be 3 of some unit of length, or pi of some unit of length.

"..how can something have a length of pi..."

sorry.

>>5140290

hmmm, youre right. Lets say, meters?

>fellow nerds
>tumblr image
>homework thread

Reported.

>>5140301
Now measure exactly 1 metre. Key word there is exactly.

what you need to realize is numbers are meaning less. every number is just in base 10 if you have pi in base pi then pi is just 1.

>>5140335

Yeah i know its from tumblr, I simply got it off google.
Homework thread? Youre funny.

>>5140332

I would say 1.

The thing is with pi meters is that pi has an infinite(correct me if Im wrong) amount of numbers after the decimal.

>>5140348

okay, I get your point. Thanks for the information!

You can't. The radius of a circle is 2pi*r under the assumption that perfect circles exist. In the real world, they don't exist. If you'd look at the edge of the most perfect real circular object you'd see something like a "staircase" of atoms.

>>5140412
I meant circumference, not radius obviously.

How do you have length from any number?
Any real number can be found in nature, the problem is just the decimal you round them to when you measure them. So, you can have things with a length pi, but you would need infinite precision to measure it.

Hope you're not a troll anyway.

π has just as many decimal places as any other number. 1 can be written as 1.000000000... and it is still 1.

If you try and measure 1.000000000... exactly, you will continuously be zooming in forever. The same is true of trying to physically measure π exactly.

Does that stop 1m from being a physical distance? No. Why should it stop πm from being one?

The answer is that you can't. Pi is a human construct, circles don't exist in any physical sense. In fact, so is 'length'.

>>5140412

Ah, okay, I understand your arguement, and makes perfect sense.
So is it safe to assume that most (complex) math deals with a perfect world, intead of a real world conditions?

>>5140421
Also, all of the things that have integer length might have been irrational numbers if the meter unit had different arbitrary length.

>>5140421

definitely not a troll. just lost.

>>5140436

fuck, youre so right. especially when dealing with asymptotes.

>>5140449
I wouldn't call it a "perfect" world, but most (if in the end not all) of math deals with objects that are not existant in the real world. Infintity for example, it doesn't exists (as to our current knowledge) in the physical world, there are a finite number of atoms in the universe, you can't have infinitely small things. You might even say objects like "numbers" are abstract non-real concepts, but you better not mention that on /sci/ since it usually starts a horrible, thread derailing flamewar.

>>5140442

I had the same thought in mind. Most math is human construct, yet so concrete and true.

Can a planet orbit a sub in a perfect circle?

>pi doesnt exist in real life because there are no perfect circles
>/sci/

Pi is an irrational number, a subset of real numbers and can exist as a lenght.

>>5140490
no. even a footlong doesn't have enough mass

>>5140498

What about a planet orbiting a sun?

Or a planet orbiting a 12 piece original recipe bucket?

Every single unit of length is arbitrary. There is no reason that anything should be some rational multiple of that unit. Something can be exactly 1 meter. Something else can be pi centimeters or e miles.

The dimension measured is independent of the measuring system.

>>5140509

When somebody tells you something is 10 meters long, you know that it is 10 times the size of what is accepted to be the standard length of a meter.

The initial length of the measurement is arbitrary, but its always the same when using that unit.