Comment by breck
1 year ago
Very interesting!
So if I understand correctly: the meter was defined using gravity and π as inputs (distance a pendulum travels in 1 cycle), so of course g and π would be connected.
1 year ago
Very interesting!
So if I understand correctly: the meter was defined using gravity and π as inputs (distance a pendulum travels in 1 cycle), so of course g and π would be connected.
On the hand, g is about 32.2 ft/s². So it's suddenly related to π³? I think there's no connection at all, it's just an accident. It would be really weird if some contemporary property of the earth were actually related to a fundamental mathematical constant. It's similar to finding a message among the digits of π that shouldn't be there, statistically speaking.
The bulk of the article is devoted to explaining that g = pi^2 in m/s^2 units (under an old definition of meter) because (that definition of) the meter was not selected arbitrarily, but selected in a way that makes the equation hold on purpose.