Re: Pi

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Wayne Shelton wrote:

> Can someone recall the letter from few months
> back discussing Mississippi's law setting pi
> equal to three.

  I don't know about a specific letter, but there is a tradition going
back at least six years of hoax letters, circulating around the internet,
about some state legislature or other doing this. See for example:
http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.htm

  Back in 1897, a pseudo-mathematician did get some Indiana legislators to
consider legislating several _other_ rational values for pi (not 3.0, and
none of it motivated by biblical passages). The bill never passed. See
for example:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_341.html
http://tafkac.org/legal/pi_indiana.html

Loren Haarsma
Received on Tue Nov 23 12:52:38 2004