Enter Your Reply The Comment You're Replying To Mark Thompson wrote on Wed, Jan 2, 2008 08:35 PM UTC:Hey, lay off the early-20th century Indiana Legislature! The bill in question wasn't their own idea and it wasn't worded as flagrantly as 'pi shall be 3.2', it was the work of a crank mathematician who produced a long, turgid manuscript of bad results, some of them indeed implying that pi would have a value other than the true one. He sent it to his local state rep, describing it as a set of wonderful new discoveries, which he would graciously allow Indiana to use -- for free! -- if only they passed this bill. The legislators moved the bill along because it was appeared to be more trouble than it would be worth to read it, which it doubtless would have been. A visitor who knew something about math clued them in on it and they spiked it. But even if the visitor hadn't done so and the thing had been enacted, no harm would have been done, other than embarrassment to my fair state's reputation -- which has evidently not been avoided in any case. Edit Form You may not post a new comment, because ItemID Mutating Chess does not match any item.