Source: www.nmsr.org
AUSTIN, TEXAS, April 1, 2010: Even as series of conservative changes to educational standards by the Texas Board of Education sparked controversy across the nation, with changes such as the removal of Thomas Jefferson from parts of the curriculum, new changes promise wider repercussions. In a bold move, the Board has now announced that it is changing the value of mathematical constant pi.
The motion to change the value of pi to exactly three was introduced without fanfare and rapidly gained support after a letter-writing campaign by members of the Solomon Society, a traditional values group.
Engineers and mathematicians in Texas’ high-tech industry are stunned. The law took the state’s engineering community by surprise. “It would have been nice if they had consulted with someone who actually uses pi,” said Marshall Bergman, a manager at Texas’ Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. “How can we hire someone who learned at school that pi is exactly three? If my missiles used that number they would all miss their target,” he reasoned.
“I think that it is the mathematicians that are being irrational, and it is time for them to admit it,” said a spokesperson for the Texas Board of Education. “The Bible very clearly says in I Kings 7:23 that the altar font of Solomon’s Temple was ten cubits across and thirty cubits in diameter, and that it was round in compass. The Biblical standard it clear.”
Many experts are warning that this is just the beginning of a national battle over pi between traditional values supporters and the technical elite. Solomon Society member Lawson agrees. “We just want to return pi to its traditional original, before science made it all confused,” he said. Lawson called into question the usefulness of any number that cannot be calculated exactly, and suggested that never knowing the exact answer could harm students’ self-esteem. “We need to return to some absolutes in our society,” he explained.