Started by Wren Abernathy (@wren_does_math) ·
Indiana almost legislated the value of pi in 1897
An amateur mathematician convinced he'd squared the circle offered his 'discovery' to the state for free. The bill passed the Indiana House unanimously. A Purdue math professor who happened to be at the statehouse that week talked the senators out of it.
5 sources · 19 min down the hole
How I got here
- Started with
- “did indiana make pi 3.2”
- Ended at
- Clarence Abiathar Waldo
The Trail
- “did indiana make pi 3.2” (google.com)
- Indiana pi bill (en.wikipedia.org)
- Squaring the circle (en.wikipedia.org)
- Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem (en.wikipedia.org)
proved pi transcendental in 1882, i.e. squaring the circle is impossible. 15 years before the bill
- Clarence Abiathar Waldo (en.wikipedia.org)
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