Looking for another occasion to celebrate? It’s Tau day.
Tau comes after another mathematical holiday–Pi Day, which is celebrated on March 14, or 3.14. Pi also known to be the number that represents the ratio of circumference to the diameter of a circle. The day is celebrated with “pie” eating contests, recitations of digits and other educational games; a brain festival for math lovers.
Tuesday, 6.28, makes it Tau Day due to the numbers known to be circumference divided by the radius. Makes sense? Tau has been celebrated for 10 years, and Michael Hartl, theoretical physicist, who launched the Tau Manifesto last year, says that pi should be replaced by tau, according to CBS News.
He thinks that circles are more naturally defined by their radius than diameter and pi makes this more confusing. According to Hartl, the tau numbers are the most important in mathematics, the radians and factors of 2 makes it harder for beginners, and tau simply makes it easier.
Kevin Houston, mathematician from the University of Leeds, agrees with Hartl. “It was one of the weirdest things I’d come across, but it makes sense,” he told BBC News.
So, even though this may sound a bit confusing, the bottom line is that the tau makes calculations easier and gives the celebration lover another day and another occasion to celebrate. Too bad that February doesn’t have 71 days, which would have made it 2.71, that equals to the first three digits of Euler, another important number in mathematics.
