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From: mcohen@charming.nrtc.northrop.com (Martin Cohen)
Subject: Re: Stapp, PK & Physics Today
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References: <41571s$12mi@columba.udac.uu.se> <41a9g5$70r@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <41btu8$8mq@net.auckland.ac.nz>
Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 20:05:12 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.skeptic:123734 sci.physics:137822 sci.math:116145 comp.ai:33001

In article <41btu8$8mq@net.auckland.ac.nz> dnor01@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (David Hikaru  Norman) writes:
>carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) writes:
>
....................
>Pi is a value, same as 2 is. An erroneous belief that one is more exact than the
>other is the result of physiological preconditioning.
........
>
>David Norman - " 'Course, I see things like this " - from the Young Ones
>http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~dnor01/

Not really. There are (at least) 2 meanings to the "2" above.
The first is as a numeric value along the real line. For this
meaning, 2 and pi are the same (though one could say that
"2" is more exact then "pi" since one can give the value
of any specified decimal place in its representation
(such as the 2^1000th place) while one might not be
able to for "pi" - at least it would take a lot more work).

The other, original, meaning of "2" is that of a counting number.
With this meaning, "2" and "pi" are vastly different concepts.

(Though at one time long ago at a university far, far away
I wrote a 5-pass assembler and, since the 4th pass was
much smaller than the others, I called it the pi-th pass)
-- 
Marty Cohen (mcohen@nrtc.northrop.com) - Not the guy in Philly
  This is my opinion and is probably not Northrop Grumman's!
          Use this material of your own free will
