Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug
Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug


Meme of two women fighting while a man smokes from a pipe in the background.
The women fighting are labeled "mathematicians defining pi" and "engineers just using 3 because it's within tolerance"
The man smoking is labeled "astrophysicists" and the pipe is labeled "pi = 1"
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38 digits of pi can get the circumference of the visible universe to within a single hydrogen atom.
10 digits gets the diameter of the earth to within an inch.
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155 0 Reply10 digits gets the diameter of the earth to within an inch.
Put another way, 10 digits means that your error will be caused by your imprecise model of the Earth's shape, rather than imprecision in the value of pi.
23 0 Replyout of curiosity... does that first fact account for the continued expansion of the universe?
16 0 ReplyIt works at the current 93 billion light years of observable universe (46ish in every direction)
26 0 Reply
And just two digits introduces less error than your average terrible model
15 0 ReplyWow, what do you have against models? I mean, I know that the trope is that they aren't very smart, but the same trope applies to firemen, so why pick on models?
11 0 Replyold man voice this must be that ragebait thing the youngsters are always talking about
5 0 ReplyFiremen are way hotter
2 0 ReplyWell, when they're burning..
2 0 Reply
The real comment mvp. You deserve every positive vote my post got
8 0 ReplyThank you O'Brian!
I hope you have finally done the DTR with Bashir...2 0 ReplyEarth is shaped like potatoe pi accounts for that??
1 0 Reply