A boss was complaining in a staff meeting the other day that he wasn't getting any respect. Later that morning he went to a local sign shop and bought a small sign that read, "I'm the Boss". He then taped it to his office door.
Later that day when he returned from lunch, he found that someone had taped a note to the sign that said. "Your wife called, she wants her sign back!"
Indiana Pi LawIn 1897, the Indiana State House legislature passed Bill No.246 which in effect gave 3.2 exactly as the value of pi. It stated, in part, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference [pi] is as five-fourths to four." That is (4 divided by 5/4) = 16/5 = 3.2 exactly. It was introduced by Representative Taylor I. Record, a farmer and lumber merchant, on behalf of a mathematical hobbyist, Dr. Edwin J. Goodwin, M.D. Neither they, nor the House politicians, understood it was mathematically incorrect. That was shortly recognized by Clarence A. Waldo, mathematics professor at Purdue University, who advised the Indiana Senators. They indefinitely postponed the bill on 12 Feb 1897. Pi is, in fact, an irrational number, approx. 3.141592.« |
