But to save you the anguish of reading a "manifesto" or two: Tau is a Greek letter that comes a few after pi. The lowercase tau even looks like half a pi. Which is where it gets silly because tau = 2 pi.
Some mathematicians think pi isn't a good number to use because (when you get to Algebra 2 and Trig and beyond) you find yourself using 2 pi in many calculations. Are of these could be simplified, they say, if you let tau = 6.2831853071...
So Circumference would be tau * r, instead of 2 * pi * r. Area would be a pain in the butt.
However, the distance around the Unit Circle would be 1 tau, which is 2 pi, and that is used in a bunch of stuff that happens later on.
Think of a superior videogame system that no one buys because every has the popular one. The people who like the "superior" but unpopular one are the ones who like tau.
What is Tau?
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ReplyDeleteBut to save you the anguish of reading a "manifesto" or two: Tau is a Greek letter that comes a few after pi. The lowercase tau even looks like half a pi. Which is where it gets silly because tau = 2 pi.
Some mathematicians think pi isn't a good number to use because (when you get to Algebra 2 and Trig and beyond) you find yourself using 2 pi in many calculations. Are of these could be simplified, they say, if you let tau = 6.2831853071...
So Circumference would be tau * r, instead of 2 * pi * r. Area would be a pain in the butt.
However, the distance around the Unit Circle would be 1 tau, which is 2 pi, and that is used in a bunch of stuff that happens later on.
Think of a superior videogame system that no one buys because every has the popular one. The people who like the "superior" but unpopular one are the ones who like tau.
Hope this helps.