Legislating Pimagicdragon2July 14 2005, 20:30:42 UTC
jonathan post
> Actually, I understand that the state of Indiana > legislated the value of pi as 3.3.
Close. A bill was introduced to make pi 3.2, but it didn't pass into law-- the Indiana senate "indefinitely postponed" consideration. (I believe it was introduced as a deliberate practical joke, although snopes.com doesn't go into the details.)
Re: Uranus, Voyager, and the Singularitymagicdragon2July 14 2005, 20:33:19 UTC
"Jonathan Vos Post: the 'discoverer' or 'inventor' of Uranus did not, at first, accept that it was a Planet, as, by definition, all the planets were known..."
Thanks for adding that item to the mix! The discovery of Neptune, I think, is every bit as good a demonstration case for Kuhn as was the discovery of oxygen. And I am such a Voyager spacecraft fan; I’m thrilled to hear that you were one of the people responsible for it all. The Uranus flyby was 1986, wasn’t it? And the Reagan Administration wanted to cut the program’s funding. We would have missed seeing those eerie clouds, that gossamer ring, and Miranda. The Neptune encounter three years later was awesome, as well, and imho Pluto isn’t really a planet.
Re: Uranus, Voyager, and the Singularitymagicdragon2July 14 2005, 20:34:35 UTC
... Jonathan Vos Post: "I showed that a quadratic fit was needed, to replace a previous linear fit, and that when one plunges through the ring plane of Uranus, one needs to minimize the rate of change of smear, rather than (as had been done at Jupiter and Saturn), smear itself."
OK, I’m in awe. I haven’t plunged through the ring plane of Uranus myself, though I am aware that the planet’s axis is almost parallel to the plane of the ecliptic, so that it’s basically tipped on its side. I keep this knowledge uppermost in my mind just in case I find myself approaching the outer planets. But I was gripped by the Voyager missions on the day in 1981 when I saw Voyager 1’s pictures of a crescent Saturn (which, of course, have to be taken from “behind” Saturn), so thank you, thank you for dreaming the equation for the Uranus flyby.
Great First Lines of Booksmagicdragon2July 22 2005, 17:57:51 UTC
I've been posting Great First Lines of Books on a Michael Bérubé thread entitled Friday, July 15, 2005 Arbitrary. Fun. Charlie Harris, professor emeritus of English at Illinois State University, contemporary literature reader/critic extraordinaire (secretary of the Center for Book Culture.org and former director of the Unit for Contemporary Literature), and all-around fine fellow, informs me that a bunch of literary-minded folk are putting together a list of Great First Lines in Novels, as an arbitrary-but-fun counterpart to the American Film Institute’s 100 great movie lines.
So far they have over 150 nominations...
But then Michael Bérubé got way over 200 comments. Mine include the ones that follow.
Re: Great First Lines of Books, 2magicdragon2July 22 2005, 18:03:21 UTC
A) “It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind
( ... )
Great First Lines of Books, 3magicdragon2July 22 2005, 18:04:51 UTC
“It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind
( ... )
Comments 106
> Actually, I understand that the state of Indiana
> legislated the value of pi as 3.3.
Close. A bill was introduced to make pi 3.2, but it didn't pass into
law-- the Indiana senate "indefinitely postponed" consideration.
(I believe it was introduced as a deliberate practical joke, although
snopes.com doesn't go into the details.)
As always, a good starting point is to check Snopes.com
http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.htm
Full details (including the more detailed calculations on what exactly
value they did chose for pi) are at the sci.math FAQ
http://www.cs.uu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/sci-math-faq/indianabill.html
--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis
Reply
Reply
Uranus did not, at first, accept that it was a Planet,
as, by definition, all the planets were known..."
Thanks for adding that item to the mix! The discovery
of Neptune, I think, is every bit as good a
demonstration case for Kuhn as was the discovery of
oxygen. And I am such a Voyager spacecraft fan; I’m
thrilled to hear that you were one of the people
responsible for it all. The Uranus flyby was 1986,
wasn’t it? And the Reagan Administration wanted to
cut the program’s funding. We would have missed
seeing those eerie clouds, that gossamer ring, and
Miranda. The Neptune encounter three years later was
awesome, as well, and imho Pluto isn’t really a
planet.
Posted by Michael on 07/14 at 10:30 AM
Reply
Reply
was needed, to replace a previous linear fit, and that
when one plunges through the ring plane of Uranus, one
needs to minimize the rate of change of smear, rather
than (as had been done at Jupiter and Saturn), smear
itself."
OK, I’m in awe. I haven’t plunged through the ring
plane of Uranus myself, though I am aware that the
planet’s axis is almost parallel to the plane of the
ecliptic, so that it’s basically tipped on its side.
I keep this knowledge uppermost in my mind just in
case I find myself approaching the outer planets. But
I was gripped by the Voyager missions on the day in
1981 when I saw Voyager 1’s pictures of a crescent
Saturn (which, of course, have to be taken from
“behind” Saturn), so thank you, thank you for dreaming
the equation for the Uranus flyby.
Posted by Michael on 07/14 at 12:52 PM
Reply
Arbitrary. Fun. Charlie Harris, professor emeritus of English at Illinois State University, contemporary literature reader/critic extraordinaire (secretary of the Center for Book Culture.org and former director of the Unit for Contemporary Literature), and all-around fine fellow, informs me that a bunch of literary-minded folk are putting together a list of Great First Lines in Novels, as an arbitrary-but-fun counterpart to the American Film Institute’s 100 great movie lines.
So far they have over 150 nominations...
But then Michael Bérubé got way over 200 comments. Mine include the ones that follow.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
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