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Comment by ogogmad | Hacker News Reader

In another comment, I asked why people chose to use the symbol τ over just writing turn or "rev(olution)" (defined to be the constant ≈ 6.28318530718) given how unambiguous the latter is as a name for 2π. And why not just write sinrev() or sinturn(), and leave the symbols sin() and rev (defined to be ≈ 6.28318530718) alone?

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I think it's Tau[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_(mathematics)

You either (i) don't know the Greek alphabet, or (ii) can't read people's short posts. I literally mentioned tau and why it might be a silly name (it clashes with other mathematical uses of the symbol tau).

First sentence of the Wikipedia link:

> The number τ (spelled as tau)

Your short post in full:

> In another comment, I asked why people chose to use the symbol τ over just writing turn or "rev(olution)" (defined to be the constant ≈ 6.28318530718) given how unambiguous the latter is as a name for 2π. And why not just write sinrev() or sinturn(), and leave the symbols sin() and rev (defined to be ≈ 6.28318530718) alone?

You were asking why they used the symbol τ rather than the words "rev" or "turn". You didn't give a clue that you knew any of the rest, including what the symbol meant.

The naming is irrelevant here. The point is that sin(x) ~ x for small x, whereas sinrev(x) ~ rev * x for small x, which is much uglier. And similar things happen to the derivative of sinrev() vs regular sin() and so on. So switching to preferring to express angles in revs instead actually complicates most formulas, at least in some domans.

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