[net.math] pi = 3

colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (George Sicherman) (03/29/84)

[Should Kentucky Fried Fox be eaten with the fingers?]

This story has been around almost as long as the Bathtub Hoax.  If
I remember right, it needs 4 corrections:

1.	The state was Illinois, not Arkansas.

2.	The bill was not passed by both houses.

3.	It would have made pi = 4, not 3.

4.	It did not really mandate that pi=4.  It required that the
	public schools use a new geometry textbook by an Illinoisan.
	The book contained a circle-squaring construction.  The
	construction was of course fallacious, and somebody
	demonstrated that pi=4 followed from it as a corollary.

Can any apostle of Martin Gardner confirm this?

		Col. George Sicherman
		...seismo!rochester!rocksvax!sunybcs!colonel