AP Gets Pi Wrong

Quote Of The Day

"In physical science a first essential step in the direction of learning any subject is to find principles of numerical reckoning and practicable methods for measuring some quality connected with it. I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. "

--William Thomson, Lord Kelvin

Sun, 03/11/2007 - 18:18

The Associated Press is running a story on Pi. Or rather, people who like Pi so much they get together to talk about it.

But in yet another example of poor understanding (or poor writing at least) about science in the mass media, AP reports that Pi is:

"made up of a chain that is known — so far — to be more than one trillion digits long"

Of course, it is known that Pi is an infinite number of digits long, of which more than one trillion are actually known. A minor difference, perhaps, but maths are funny that way: even small distinctions matter.

In any case, the Pi-natics will meet on March 14 (3-14, of course) to sing the praises of their favorite irrational. So the AP story, though irrational, is not without redeeming value: near infinite variety of Pi related anecdotes. I liked the bit about the 'piem', an aperiodic poem where the length of each word represents a digit of Pi. Highly recommended.

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