this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Sure, until you actually need the correct result of the circumference of a circle and think pi is 5.
Misinformation is education. Welcome to the future.
Like, at least make it 3 instead of 5. Still allows for mental math
It's fucking pi. It's a constant that will never change in their entire lives, just teach reality the first time instead of making up a thousand little lies to correct later.
What do you mean there are more than 3 states of matter?
Wait until they start to learn about quantum foam and super fluids.
Gotta cut it off at some point though, right? How many decimals? 10, 4, 1, or 0?
Plus, this is a test not the knowledge delivery. Some thing as 'assume a flat plane with no friction' for a physics test. Yeah it's not 100% accurate but the test taker can be evaluated on the methods
But why 5 and not 4 or 3?
How are you rounding 3.14... to equal 5?
Everything is knowledge delivery if the knowledge is correct. And we already have the decimal cut off, it's 3.14. You can even find a dozen scientific papers as to why this is specific enough for almost every purpose.
Edit: Also, when it's mirrored it spells PIE.
But that's exactly a little lie, in contrast to reality. The truth is, Pi is an irrational number. This means every decimal representation is necessarily wrong, or a "lie", if you insist. Wether someone deems it accurate "enough" for "almost every purpose" is their opinion. It's still not the number Pi. If you want to write Pi down in decimal representation, you need to use infinitely many digits. If you use less, you did not write down Pi. Anyone suggesting something else is feeding you a little lie.
The intent of this paragraph was not to encourage you to always fully spell out Pi, but to lead the idea ad absurdum. It should be apparent that there are situations when it is practical, even necessary, to simplify reality to something we can handle.
Science education is full of these situations.
For example, when learning about the composition of atoms, you might first hear about them in the context of Chemistry. And use the Nuclear shell model, which imagines electrons to exist in tidy, circular orbits around the nucleus. Later your teacher might hint at another representation, Atomic orbitals. Later still you might learn about quantum mechanics and describe everything in Wave functions.
Which is reality? While they live in a spectrum from 'easier to understand' to 'more accurate'; Neither! They all are models. They all are human creations. Made by humans, for humans, to talk about reality. They are tools of communication tailored to specific use cases and audiences. Because reality is infinitely complex, but our understanding is always limited.
If you think about it, you will find endless examples like these in your journey how you learned science. We are unable to experience reality as it is, and need to wrap it in language and models. We are also curious at very young ages, and need models and language which is appropriate to our still developing individual capability. We need to embrace these little lies to stand on shoulders of giants.
5 Lies You Were Told in School (SciShow)
Anything not objectively true is a lie, anything beyond our best determination is false.
But that does us no good if you can't work within the context of the necessary framework as knowledge becomes useless as nuance is lost.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2016/3/16/how-many-decimals-of-pi-do-we-really-need/
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.
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.
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, ...".
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.
Or just use a cube and say one side is 5 long. Does it really have to be a cylinder?
This is what we get when we cater to the dumbest kids in the class.
The dumbest kids in class can't handle algebra.
It's a really bad question for all sorts of reasons. Firstly because they defining π as 5 (it's not even close to the real value) and they never explain what h is.
Also you should probably just use letters everywhere at this point and not use π unless π equals π.
No child left behind = every child left behind.
I was thinking more it’s Freedom Pi from Florida or Texas or something.
Pretty sure they call that frito-pi in Texas
Sort of. Frito Pie (my grandmother is from Texas and used to make it) is covered with Texas chili.
Ha, oops. I thought this was a response to a conversation about nachos.
So? You think you'll get the correct result by using 3? Or 3.14? Not quite. You can only get infinitesimally close to the correct result by increasing digits of pi.
And of course, if you really need that circumference for something critical, guess what? You use the things people developed for this very problem, software packages, and so on. And of course, you get it double checked, triple checked.
If it's assume pi is 5, it's not misinformation. If they point guns at kids and say it's 5 for real, then yes.
Or you could just use 3.14 which is infinitesimally more correct than 5, not lie about the number and aim for correctness and accuracy so people learn how to do things right the first time.
If you can't handle a few decimal points then you aren't ready for pi, go back to third grade.
I don't think you understand what infinitesimally means! It means the opposite- you want to use 'infinitely' there. Because you're kinda agreeing with me otherwise xD
Now, not being a condescending asshole, I really take issue with you calling an approximation a 'lie'. And honestly, who's multiplying decimal points mentally? That's difficult. Use a calculator. Want to avoid calculators for an exam? Simplify! That's why they use 5 and not 3.14.
I was typing in a rush and mistyped, but you understand what I meant.
That's a bullshit excuse. 3 could be argued but 5 is straight disinformation. And I do multiplication of decimals in my head because I was taught how to in school, that's how far behind the US system is.
That's impressive. Mental math isn't one of my talents to be honest. And let's agree to disagree about the disinformation.
It's a skill like any other, you have to be taught it to learn it, and you need practice to get better.
Lots of skills in the world, some more useful than others.
I find the basic building blocks of comprehension to be important.