RE: Was pi invented or discovered?
July 14, 2013 at 8:11 am
(This post was last modified: July 14, 2013 at 8:13 am by bennyboy.)
(July 10, 2013 at 8:12 pm)Categories+Sheaves Wrote:Well, is "2" a thing? Yes, it is a symbol, and it is representative of groups we make of things with 1 more than 1 members. I wouldn't say "2" was invented, though-- since the symbol represents a value.(June 20, 2013 at 9:37 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Pi isn't a thing, and was neither discovered or invented. It is a mathematical statement about a relationship.-Mathematical statements about relationships aren't things?
-If we think of the velocity of an object as a statement about how its positions are related over time--is velocity a thing?
-Does Pi mean a thing if it ain't got that swing
So was the value discovered? I suppose on a very primitive level you could say at some point people discovered that there could be 1 more than 1 thing. In a similar way, you could say that people discovered Pi in their attempts to relate various geometries. I could measure the relationship between the size of my hand and my foot, and give that a label, if I wanted, and that would be a discovery in the sense that I didn't know the numerical value of that ratio before; but I don't, because I don't have reason to believe that value will be useful.
So with regards to Pi, I think it's a little arbitrary. At some point, someone said, "Hey, we measure circles so much, let's make a label for THIS relationship."