The number system was invented by the Arabs. Pi always existed, so it was discovered. We use our Arab numbers to represent how Pi is read. Not much else to it, IMO.
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Was pi invented or discovered?
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Looks like we had quite a rhubarb over pi.
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould  RE: Was pi invented or discovered?
July 10, 2013 at 8:12 pm
(This post was last modified: July 10, 2013 at 8:40 pm by Categories+Sheaves.)
(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? (July 9, 2013 at 7:21 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: A circle, by definition, is not a line.inb4 you discover projective geometry  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? 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." 
Math is a human invention. However, pi is from geometry, which is really physics. So it was a discovery, but expressing it as 3.14159625...is a human concept.
 RE: Was pi invented or discovered?
July 15, 2013 at 11:39 pm
(This post was last modified: July 15, 2013 at 11:40 pm by MindForgedManacle.)
(July 10, 2013 at 8:12 pm)Categories+Sheaves Wrote:(July 9, 2013 at 7:21 pm)MindForgedManacle Wrote: A circle, by definition, is not a line.inb4 you discover projective geometry Jumping to non-Euclidian geometry is evil man. >:l It'd be like talking about logic, then jumping to modal logic. /strangles you  Now that I think about it, talking about the ontology of math depresses me for some reason. Le sigh. 
Yeah pi would be expressed with completely different numbers if we didn't use a base 10 math system.
 (July 16, 2013 at 12:21 am)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Yeah pi would be expressed with completely different numbers if we didn't use a base 10 math system. What other math system would there be, we have only ten fingers and one of those is zero.
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Erm, I can think of at least two base systems we use on a daily basis: binary (base 2) and hex (base 16). Computers use those all the time.
 (July 16, 2013 at 2:05 am)Godschild Wrote:(July 16, 2013 at 12:21 am)BadWriterSparty Wrote: Yeah pi would be expressed with completely different numbers if we didn't use a base 10 math system. One of them is zero? You have a zero finger? Was it amputated? Humans have used number systems other than base 10. The base 10 system is rather recent.
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