Pi: was Re: Guinness Book of Records??

[Henry Gould]

The most important constant in the entire known Universe is the number 1
(one).
Astronomers choose the scale carefully so that the distance from earth to sun
is
exactly  1  astronomical unit. Similarly, in much cosmological research we
take
the speed of light to be 1 unit. You scale things so that the charge of the
electron
is 1, or the Rydberg constant can be said to be 1, or Planck's constant can be
taken
to be 1, or the fundamenal frequency unit can be taken to be 1 Hertz.
There is only empty set (uniqueness). Surely 1 is the most used number. It is
the very first NATURAL number!
So it goes, on and on, and if we dare . . . there is  one god (Adonai echad).
Why don't we admit that pi is  1? . . .  of course then the circumference of
the
circle gets a bit complicated.

All Squared up,

Henry

Jud McCranie wrote:

> At 10:15 PM 8/23/2002 -0400, Franklin T. Adams-Watters wrote:
> >Actually, there's good reason to think pi is not the MOST FAMOUS
> >TRANSCEDENTAL CONSTANT OF *THE WHOLE COSMOS*.  It's only a historical
> >accident that we wound up with the ratio of the circumference to the
> >diameter.  It could just as easily have been 2*pi: the ratio of the
> >circumference to the radius.  And while the relationship is obviously
> >trivial, 2*pi is slightly more fundamental mathematically: it is the
> >period for sin and cos, among other things.
>
> Once I tried to make a similar point on sci.math, and people didn't
> understand what I was saying.  Most constants are "fixed", but we could use
> 2pi or pi/2 as the basic constant.  Some things would be easier with one of
> them, but they are fundamentally the same.
>
> +---------------------------------------------------------+
> |       Jud McCranie                                      |
> |                                                         |
> | Programming Achieved with Structure, Clarity, And Logic |
> +---------------------------------------------------------+