Annoying science fiction device detected

[jwgh]

I started reading John Brunner's Meeting at Infinity. Early on in the book we encounter that hoary old bit of science fiction nonsense, the inconstant π:

Pi, it seemed, was invariant. However, certain deductions from curved-space mathematics indicated conditions under with it would assume values different from the familiar 3.1416. It would remain an irrational number of course. But the physical conditions for altering its value could be described.

So the guy creates a machine that creates an area where the value of π is different, and this turns out to be a way to reach alternative universes whose history differs from Earth's proportionately to the difference between its value of π and ours.

I think that this sort of thing comes from a misunderstanding of noneuclidean geometry (or, I suppose, a desire to annoy mathematicians). There are geometries where if you measure the circumference of a circle and divide it by the diameter you'll get a number other than 3.14159265... This doesn't change the value of the number π, though, and it has nothing to do with π's irrationality. It makes about as much sense to posit a universe where 2 has a different value.

Anyway!

Comments

[jwgh]

Some of this might actually be in the Brunner book I'm reading. I'll let you know!

Ideally the Scientifiction Playhouse would make a reference to the π=24/7 troll, and maybe the old Douglas Hofstadter chestnut 'If π equalled 3, this sentence wuld lk like this." [The 'o's are supposed to be replaced with hexagons, because the ratio of a hexagon's perimeter to its diameter is 3.] Or maybe not.

I'm not sure how the anomaly is encountered, though. Maybe by miners tunneling deep into the Earth, affected by the increased gravitational field there?

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

My first instinct was to go with the traditional unexplored remote island, but yeah, a mine would make more sense. And you're right abotu the 22/7, 24/7 thingie, and I never made it through any Hofstadler (please do not revoke my geek credentials, I'm sure I have a copy of G.E.B. around here somewhere), but I can work that in, I think.

[jwgh]

What I was thinking was that maybe the minecarts (or whatever objects with wheels you would have on a remote desert island) would suddenly stop moving, because their wheels suddenly turned hexagonal due to the changing value of pi.

Unfortunately UNSENET isn't really a good medium for typing sentences with hexagons instead of os. I was shocked that there doesn't appear to be a Unicode hexagon!

Unicode Hexagon

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

ISAGN!