matt’s

I came across a funny side note in The Pragmatic Programmer:

In 1897, Indiana State Legislature House Bill No. 246 attempted to decree that henceforth PI should have the value of “3″. The Bill was tabled indefinitely at its second reading when a mathematics professor pointed out that their powers did not quite extend to passing laws of nature.

The really frightening thing is that this ingenious idea doesn’t sound any less probable once I change the 1897 to a 1997.

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