So, today is the 14th of March, also known by many of you as "Pi day" (So called because it correlates to the popular approximation of the mathematical constant Pi - 3.14). However, I've always had a love-hate relationship with Pi, and don't like how much people focus on Pi. Here's why I don't like Pi day.
First, I'm not gonna be like those misguided souls who will say that "Pi is wrong." Pi is not wrong, there is nothing inherently wrong with the constant 3.14159265. . . etc. It is a perfectly accurate measure of the ratio between a circle's diameter and its circumference. But there is where my first problem with pi is. I would like to ask people who tout a love of pi day exactly what pi is and get an answer similar to "It's the circumference of a circle divided by that circle's diameter." But instead I would probably get an answer like, "Three point one four!" Great, that's like asking "What is two" and instead of saying something like, "Half of four," you say "It's TWO!" That's tautological. It's redundant. It's like making a sandwich with jelly and jelly. In any case, my problem is that Pi actually has a definition that makes it quite useful in math in general and geometry in specific. To be fair, there are plenty of people that use pi to determine things that pi is related to, like the area of a circle, or the volume of a sphere, or the length of an arc, but it's not just some number that someone decided seemed cool, it has a specific definition.
Second, and somewhat related to the first, Pi has a reputation for having an infinite number of digits and people put a lot of emphasis in memorizing a large number of said digits. While I will not discredit the skill and dedication it takes to memorize a large string of digits, memorizing pi to the 500th digit does not make you any sort of "math genius." It makes you good a memorizing numbers. I have pi memorized to the first nine digits, which is six digits more than I ever really need when using pi in calculations. If I actually do need more digits for some reason, I have calculators that will give me pi to more digits, if I so desire. The fact of the matter is, though, that after four digits, the value isn't changing much. Another way to think about it, is that when we talk about large sums of money, we might say that a certain object is sold for Twelve million dollars. If that number is actually $12,264,318.52, we still say Twelve million, because the other numbers, when compared to twelve million, are insignificant.
Finally, Pi is just annoying. Who here knows how to find the circumference of a circle? You multiply the radius by 2 then by pi. Now why is there a two in there? Simple, pi is the diameter of the circle over the circumference and the diameter is twice the radius. So why don't we just make the formula pi times the diameter, you ask? Because a circle is not defined by its diameter, it's defined by its radius, or the distance from the center of the circle to any part of the edge. It's easy to measure that, as long as you know the center. The diameter is the distance between two points on a circle that are on exactly opposite sides, to measure that you need two points, and you need to be sure they're the right two points. In any case, the reason we use double the radius is because we need to make up for the fact that pi is related to the diameter and not the radius. A better way to measure the circumference of a circle would be to use the ratio that compares the radius to the circumference, which is conveniently pi doubled, or 6.283185. . . also known as Tau. Tau makes a lot of things a lot less confusing and helps to clear up a lot the formulas related to circles.
Anyway, the point of today's rant is that Pi day, although a fun reason to eat pie with a Greek letter on it, is not that great. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make preparations for my Tau day party on June 28th.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Friday, March 7, 2014
Ragging on "Millenials"
First off, I hate the term "Millennial." I mean, I understand the term and it's not like I have any other word for it myself at the moment, but I just don't like it. I think part of the reason I don't like the term is that over the last few years it's been associated with bad things. I always hear on the news or read online things about how "Millennials" are so spoiled, or so selfish, or so lazy, or whatever. The only time I hear that word, it seems, is in relation to how terrible we are. As many of you know, I fit into that demographic of people born sometime between the early 80's and the early 2000's, and I'm sick and tired of being beat on by the media all the time.
So, we're lazy? I remember in school kids pushing themselves to get A's and feeling bad if they didn't. I notice my peers in college beating themselves up for a B while also trying to juggle a social life, and often times a job (full-time, mind you, part-time isn't gonna cut it). In the job I'm in now my age group seems to be the hardest workers. But what about the older generations? Congress obviously isn't a great example, every time a budget issue comes up they end up kicking the deadline down the road. I had a coworker in her forties recently chew me out for sitting down for five minutes but she was a half hour late to work. Heck, even the news I see about us "lazy millennials" is littered with overdone and useless stories (I know that car dealerships are gonna try to take all my money, you don't have to tell me every month). So we're lazy?
So we're spoiled? We feel the need to know things at the touch of a button because we were given the ability to do that. Did Gutenberg spoil the masses by giving them access to the Bible and the written word? Did Shakespeare spoil the common folks by throwing in a bawdy joke or two? Did Philo T. Farnsworth spoil people by allowing them to have images and sound brought into their homes? Why is technology that is used considered spoiling? The only reason I finally broke down and stopped using internet at the library is that it is almost impossible to function in today's society without easy access to the world wide web. That's not my fault, I didn't force businesses to go online, I just took advantage of the ones that did. However, for those of my peers that are "spoiled," I feel that goes back to their parents. The parents that got them all the nice things, the parents that treated them like they were the perfect little angel. The parents that did the work for school projects. I understand the desire for a child to succeed, but I feel that my parents gave a better lesson, that sometimes I'm going to fail, and that doesn't make me a failure, it makes me a human. So we're spoiled?
So we're selfish? We live in a world that is run by the internet. Socialization is done online now. We don't talk to our friends only at very specific times, we can get a hold of friends just by tapping on a plastic screen. We live in an age where we can, if we want, make a friend on the other side of the world and have a real-time conversation with them. The internet is now built around social networking, and social networking is built around, essentially, telling your friends what you are doing. I see people posting the same stuff on Facebook that I would have said to my friends in person, but now those friends live hundreds of miles away and have busy lives and busy schedules, so I put that information on the internet so that they can see it. We take pictures of ourselves to show our friends the things we are doing, even if that's just taking pictures of ourselves. More importantly, we live in an age of trolls, people who will latch on to one tiny thing about a comment, or a post, or any piece of content you put on the internet and mock you for it. Could it be that the girl posting selfies and fishing for compliments might be getting torn apart by ruthless internet bullies for her stance on a controversial issue. Could it be that the young man talking about how much he worked out is just trying to fit in with his friends? But let's go back to the people in Congress. I seem to remember the government shutting down for awhile because the people in that generation couldn't give up a few tiny things they wanted, because nobody could accept that other people have different views and opinions and that it won't kill you to hear them. So we're selfish?
I'm not gonna say that this rant is anything special, just the thoughts and feelings of a "Millennial" tired of being labeled as a terrible person who's ruining the world. My point is, to the older generation of millennial haters, we aren't ruing the world, we're just trying to live in the one you gave us.
So, we're lazy? I remember in school kids pushing themselves to get A's and feeling bad if they didn't. I notice my peers in college beating themselves up for a B while also trying to juggle a social life, and often times a job (full-time, mind you, part-time isn't gonna cut it). In the job I'm in now my age group seems to be the hardest workers. But what about the older generations? Congress obviously isn't a great example, every time a budget issue comes up they end up kicking the deadline down the road. I had a coworker in her forties recently chew me out for sitting down for five minutes but she was a half hour late to work. Heck, even the news I see about us "lazy millennials" is littered with overdone and useless stories (I know that car dealerships are gonna try to take all my money, you don't have to tell me every month). So we're lazy?
So we're spoiled? We feel the need to know things at the touch of a button because we were given the ability to do that. Did Gutenberg spoil the masses by giving them access to the Bible and the written word? Did Shakespeare spoil the common folks by throwing in a bawdy joke or two? Did Philo T. Farnsworth spoil people by allowing them to have images and sound brought into their homes? Why is technology that is used considered spoiling? The only reason I finally broke down and stopped using internet at the library is that it is almost impossible to function in today's society without easy access to the world wide web. That's not my fault, I didn't force businesses to go online, I just took advantage of the ones that did. However, for those of my peers that are "spoiled," I feel that goes back to their parents. The parents that got them all the nice things, the parents that treated them like they were the perfect little angel. The parents that did the work for school projects. I understand the desire for a child to succeed, but I feel that my parents gave a better lesson, that sometimes I'm going to fail, and that doesn't make me a failure, it makes me a human. So we're spoiled?
So we're selfish? We live in a world that is run by the internet. Socialization is done online now. We don't talk to our friends only at very specific times, we can get a hold of friends just by tapping on a plastic screen. We live in an age where we can, if we want, make a friend on the other side of the world and have a real-time conversation with them. The internet is now built around social networking, and social networking is built around, essentially, telling your friends what you are doing. I see people posting the same stuff on Facebook that I would have said to my friends in person, but now those friends live hundreds of miles away and have busy lives and busy schedules, so I put that information on the internet so that they can see it. We take pictures of ourselves to show our friends the things we are doing, even if that's just taking pictures of ourselves. More importantly, we live in an age of trolls, people who will latch on to one tiny thing about a comment, or a post, or any piece of content you put on the internet and mock you for it. Could it be that the girl posting selfies and fishing for compliments might be getting torn apart by ruthless internet bullies for her stance on a controversial issue. Could it be that the young man talking about how much he worked out is just trying to fit in with his friends? But let's go back to the people in Congress. I seem to remember the government shutting down for awhile because the people in that generation couldn't give up a few tiny things they wanted, because nobody could accept that other people have different views and opinions and that it won't kill you to hear them. So we're selfish?
I'm not gonna say that this rant is anything special, just the thoughts and feelings of a "Millennial" tired of being labeled as a terrible person who's ruining the world. My point is, to the older generation of millennial haters, we aren't ruing the world, we're just trying to live in the one you gave us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)