477
Order of magnitude is a hell of a drug (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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Meme of two women fighting while a man smokes from a pipe in the background.

The women fighting are labeled "mathematicians defining pi" and "engineers just using 3 because it's within tolerance"

The man smoking is labeled "astrophysicists" and the pipe is labeled "pi = 1"

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[–] 55 points 1 year ago (1 child)

as an engineer, a lot of languages (even proprietary ones) have a built-in constant pi variable because it is so ubiquitous - its easier and more readable to use pi than 3........

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    I've also never seen a fellow engineer simplify pi to just 3, although I have seen a rise of memes from people who think they do.

    I would slap someone if I saw them try that, it's unnecessarily sloppy. 3.14 is the default, and trivial to work with if you're using a calculator (I would also slap someone if I saw them not using a calculator). Unless you just LIKE having all your calculations be off by almost 5%. Then you'll come back wondering why so many of your parts are out of tolerance.

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