The Yellow Brick Road leads nowhere...

[Doug Yanega]

>>But don't forget that another plains state legislature (Nebraska?) once
>>passed >a law that the value of pi would henceforth be 4.00.
>
>This is so far off the wall that it absolutely cannot possibly be true!
>(So of course it is.)  Does anybody have a reference for this?  It would
>be great in developing an example of the relationship between physical
>laws and public opinion.

It is not true. http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/pi.htm says:

Claim:   Responding to pressure from religious groups, Alabama's state
legislature redefined the value of pi from
       3.14159 to 3, to bring it in line with biblical precepts.

Status:   False.

Origins:   This wonderful bit of creative writing began circulating on the
Internet in April 1998. Written by Mark
       Boslough as an April Fool's parody on legislative and school board
attacks on evolution in New Mexico, the author
       took real statements from New Mexican legislators and school board
members supporting creationism and recast
       them into a fictional account detailing how Alabama legislators had
passed a law calling for the value of pi to be set to
       the "Biblical value" of 3.0.

       This brilliant piece of humor was originally posted to the newsgroup
talk.origins on 1 April 1998 as well as sent to a
       list of New Mexican scientists and citizens interested in evolution
and printed in the April issue of the New Mexicans
       for Science and Reason newsletter NMSR Reports. Its talk.origins
poster followed up a day later with a full
       confession and explanation of the prank, thereby allowing others to
share in the fun. One would have thought that
       would have been the end of it.

       Ah but the Internet works in mysterious ways. Several readers
forwarded the piece to friends and posted it to other
       newsgroups. As the story moved along, what would have easily
identified it as a parody and not a news item was
       stripped out: the attribution to "April Holiday" of the "Associmated
Press." Now it looked like a real news piece.
       Which is how it was received by many.

       There is not now and never has been a bill in front of the Alabama
state legislature to redefine the value of pi.
       Though the claim about the Alabama state legislature is pure
nonsense, it is similar to an event that happened more
       than a century ago. In 1897 the Indiana House of Representatives
unanimously passed a measure redefining the area
       of a circle and the value of pi. (House Bill no. 246, introduced by
Rep. Taylor I. Record.) The bill died in the state
       Senate.
---------
Would that the present ruling in Kansas were also just a bit of faxlore,
too. Argh.

Peace,


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
                http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82