• Spzi@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    It has some irony that someone is arguing for an inaccurate value of Pi in a meme post which is all about Pi being used inaccurately, while complaining about “little lies”.

    If you want to talk about this opinion piece: Rayman himself says they are using many more digits, because two digits is not enough. Pi is also used in many more fields than astronomy. So to assume “all we ever need is two digits of Pi” because astronomers consider that to be enough “for most calculations” seems a bit short-sighted.

    For example, if you repeatedly multiply a value by something with Pi, over many million iterations, you absolutely want more accuracy. The example given in the article is very specific. It’s a nice insight, but no basis for generalization.

    In the end, if you insist this simplification is sufficient, you’re making the very point I was making: Sometimes, we don’t need the full complexity of reality, but “a little lie” is fully sufficient and much easier to understand and deal with. However, students should understand that’s not the full story, probably never will be.

    • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Well I’m sure our grade school kids need all of them… Like I said, if you can’t stay within the relevant context your nuance becomes irrelevant.

      • Spzi@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Like I said, if you can’t stay within the relevant context your nuance becomes irrelevant.

        Just for the record, the previous comment consisted of just the link when I replied to it. All the other text was edited in afterwards.

        It feels a bit sketchy to edit a comment after it was replied to, then responding to the reply with “Like I said, …”.

        • LemmysMum@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It was edited within a minute of me posting it, you didn’t respond to it that quickly, that’s down to your instance not mirroring the edit.