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Comment by rick_2047 | Hacker News Reader

rick_2047

I may get down modded for this but I just have to say, this is more like a religious propaganda than science. Throughout the article they have only demonstrated how a particular community is more comfortable with using double pi. I totally believe in what wwortiz said in his/her(sorry cannot open your website) post. If they like the tau so much they should be writing papers on its advantage.

I think scientists should be more concerned about finding and confirming important things than releasing such propaganda.

EDIT: OK I don't usually do this, but I would like anyone who downvotes me to leave a small note on why this time. Its really important to me

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Look at it like a refactoring. Sometimes it is desirable to stop and reorganize a bit. The fact that there is a good reason for using both pi and tau may not be immediately obvious to some people, so they tell us about it. I for example, would never catch on to what tau is, and why it is useful without this. Now that I read it however, I can understand it well. Further, I have gone back and re-examined some things I have been learning lately that contain major sin and cos components. Suddenly they make much more sense to me -- using Tau gives me an intuitive understanding of how cos and sin are related.

To put it another way: If I, and other willing but not genius types, can't understand the results of scientists "finding and confirming important things" why should they do it in the first place? [Edit:] I mean can't understand in a way for use in engineering and other practical ways.

A final note: there is a strong resistance in the math, science, and engineering communities to the idea of "lets look at what we know and reformulate it in a consistent way". They think it is intuitive as it is, even tho there may be ways that people can learn it faster and to as deep of an understanding if a different formulation is used. This results in a lot of stupidity in the world like teaching physics in the order it was discovered, rather than some order building on concepts, or teaching physics by expressing velocity as a fundamental concept instead of as a derivative of something else.

Notation is a pretty big deal in Mathematics. As software people we should be able to appreciate how evocative notation can get rid of unnecessary cognitive load when dealing with complexity.

Here is a link that talks about notation in Maths: http://www.cut-the-knot.org/language/index.shtml . Here's another link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabla_symbol . The example from calculus is also pretty famous.

Also, FWIW, I didn't downvote you.

Your comment doesn't fit the article very well which may be why it is being downvoted.

"this is more like a religious propaganda than science"

First of all, it is about math, not science. And it is not like religious propaganda, which relies on authority or faith. It clearly and cogently explains reasons why using tau is better than pi.

"Throughout the article they have only demonstrated how a particular community is more comfortable with using double pi."

No community was mentioned. Just ideas.

"If they like the tau so much they should be writing papers on its advantage."

The manifesto is exactly that: a "paper" about its advantage.

"I think scientists should be more concerned about finding and confirming important things than releasing such propaganda."

From the manifesto: "Tau Manifesto author Michael Hartl is an educator and entrepreneur." He is not a scientist.

So that's probably why people are downvoting you. You probably just skimmed the article instead of reading it and therefore misunderstood the article.

Hold off on the "he is not a scientist" line... the Caltech Physics Ph.D. (a theorist, not some namby-pamby experimentalist) does give Michael the street cred to rant about such things.

Now if only he used his powers for good instead of evil...

I wasn't going to say anything, but I admit that the "he is not a scientist" line did sting a little. Although it's true that I'm not currently suckling at the academic teat, I did spend three years at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as an undergrad and eight years at Caltech as a grad student and postdoc doing research in theoretical astrophysics. I like to think that gives me some cred as a scientist, and I appreciate your coming to my defense. :-)

One reason I didn't hold the comment against the parent poster is that techiferous == Wyatt Greene, and he was by far the single most helpful pre-launch reviewer of the Tau Manifesto. He is clearly on the side of what is good and sweet and true.

Speaking of good vs. evil, you sound like a supporter of the Jedi. While it is true that I am a Sith lord, it is my duty to inform you that it is the Jedi, not the Sith, who are truly evil. How can this be? Suffice to say you've been exposed to a lot of anti-Sith propaganda. ;-)

Ah, I didn't catch that. :)

"Throughout the article they have only demonstrated how a particular community is more comfortable with using double pi."

The manifesto explains why using tau is better mostly for non-mathematicians. Especially, but not limited to, children learning about radians for the first time. You may disagree, but I think helping explain mathematics better is incredibly important.

I've heard it said that a good notation is worth 10 good theorems.

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