H.I. No. 7: Sorry, Language Teachers: Difference between revisions

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{{collapse top|title=Summary}}Brady and Grey talk about Pi Day and Vi Hart's "Anti-Pi Rant" video, comparing Pi and Tau and their feelings towards "celebrity numbers"{{Empty section|date=September 2017}}
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Grey 0:00
We'll edit this out. This is editing out song. We have five new countries that have left reviews for us in iTunes. And this week it is Bella ruseBelarus, China, MataMalta, Slovenia and Uruguay. So again, it's awesome to collect more countries. We really have quite a full roster now of places that have left iTunes reviews. I just want to say thanks to everyone. And thanks to everyone from those countries who left a review.
 
Brady 0:32
We only just got China,?
 
Grey 0:33
I was surprised that we only just got China and I was almost wondering if the iTunes store was even available in China. I wasn't sure if it was like YouTube, which I don't know if the internet is aware or not., Butbut YouTube is not available in China. So I was wondering if maybe the iTunes Store wasn't available in China. But so we now do have the most populous nation on Earth added to our collection of countries
 
Brady 0:58
We're breaking into big markets now mate.
 
Unknown Speaker 1:00
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Grey 1:03
We're going to capture all of that China market very shortly,.
 
Brady 1:06
weWe might have to start doing a china version of the podcast where we do the whole thing again speaking in in Mandarin or something.
 
Grey 1:12
Yes, yes, that will... never happen.
 
Brady 1:17
So, the last podcast was about emailing. Yes. And you gave some advice about emailing that I personally found really useful. And I know some of the viewers did. And I sort of, ityou went up in my estimations as an emailemailer. Oh, thank you. And then last night. You saidsent me, like, I guess maybe for a normal person, it would be an OK email, but some crazy email, like, very long for you a bit rambling, you haven't apologized for it in the email. Had you been drinking or something?
 
Grey 1:50
I kept drinking or something. No, I was just tired. Very tired. And you were last on my email queue and I thought I was being much more rational than I was. But yes, I did. I did since you rather at rambley email that did not make a whole lot of sense when I saw it in the morning and I was slightly embarrassed. And yes, that was that was perfectly timetimed to come after the show about sending efficient emails. So I apologise for that.
 
Brady 2:17
So maybe I should start like some some sort of Kickstarter or crowd campaign and if people give enough money orI'll like, share that email with the world.
 
Grey 2:25
Now I don't think that's necessary. I don't I don't think we need to do that. We can we can skip. We can skip that one. What
 
Brady 2:31
What else is going on then? Have you been much else? much else in the feedback? I've been following the Reddit it's been it's been good fun.
 
Grey 2:37
Yes, Yes, I have. I've been following the Reddit as well. And I think we both commented, I'll put it in the show notes. Someone left an absolutely hilarious image that I want to find out whoever left this image I need to know where this is from. But this image under just the link said CGP Grey visits Brady and his Househouse. When you click the link, it goes to this this comical picture of this robot standing in a cave mancaveman's dwelling.
 
Brady 3:09
I'm looking at it now. Perfect. It's perfect.
 
Grey 3:13
It is absolutely perfect.
 
Brady 3:15
I know talking about a photo is not excellent podcast fatherfodder, but I do recommend people go and have a look. People arealways sosay "Oh what isdoes CGP Grey look like?" funnily enough for some strange reason. This does look like you like that robot is somehow captures you. I don't know how so if people wanna know, go and have a look.
 
Grey 3:33
I think I bought a No, I think I never looked. Yeah, that's why that's why it's funny is I can look at that robot totoo and feel like I am kin to this creature. Yeah, we're on. We're on the same level there. So whoever-
 
Brady 3:46
And it does help, it does help that the caveman as well has kind of long matted ginger hair. So that sort of adds to the brain EnosBrady-ness of him as well. So yes, yes, I don't have quite such impressive biceps unfortunately.
 
Grey 3:58
But yeah, so well, I'll put a link in the show notes people can check that out. And if someone can tell us where the original poster can tell us where that's from, I'm really curious. It looks like it's from some TV show in the 60s maybe? I don't know exactly. But I'd be really curious to know the origins of that image. I don't
 
Brady 4:14
under ine I think? we're under Ryanunderine? is the person who posted it. So hopefully they're listening.
 
Grey 4:19
hopefully they're listening. Yes, thanks to him, or her. That was hilarious. And really made me laugh.
 
Brady 4:25
Yeah. ButI've got it on my screen today, so I'm looking at it throughout the podcast. Good looking into those grayGrey like eyes.
 
Grey 4:34
What else? What else from a follow up? I don't know if I should mention this now. But you did ask a question, which I never really got around to answering in the previous one. But you asked me some examples of terrible emails that I get. WhichWorst practice Yeah, worst practices. And I just when I was going through my email the other day, I just made a note of some of the emails that I do. Getget. So just very quickly, some of my least favorite things to get are the sort of emails that people write where apparently random words in the sentence are keptcaps blockslocked. They're written in all caps. And it's like these people want to use italics. But instead, they just use all caps. And so you read it as though they're sort of shouting every fifth or sixth word. I get enough of those, usually from people who are very angry about something that I've mentioned in a video that they think is right or wrong. So that that's, that's an example of crazy. An example of a professional one that irritates the heck out of me, is sending emails to schedule, phone calls or meetings without actually telling me anything at all about what we were going to have a phone call or a meeting about. That's a very bad practice. Just say, the ones that I get the most often, which I do delete them. Rightjust straight away, but I almost feel like it was good try Good try kid, hisis kids in school basically asking me to write essays for them on a particular topic, which happens often enough, some, some kid will literally send me like a scanned image of his homework assignment and say, you know, oh, I need to write a 300 word essay on this particular topic. Would you mind? You know, doing that for me? It's like, obviously, I'm not gonna do that. But you know what? Almost like props to you for asking, but delete immediately.
 
Brady 6:32
Immediately. It takes you six weeks to write a YouTube script. How long is it going to take you to write a school? Soessay?
 
Grey 6:36
So yeah, but Seesee, the thing is with the school essay, if I did write it, I would have no incentive to do it well at all enough so that's the No, no, I'm not the one who's going to get the D wouldn't be my fault.
 
Brady 6:46
How aA whole category of emails that I get, because of making mathematics videos or people or science videos in general, really, people who have theories, people who've lived, think they've done perpetual motion or, you know, a new form of nuclear energy. And it's sort of like, yeah, that's a I get a lot of them that has spiked this week that I made a video about the Riemann hypothesis, which is the sort of the greatest unsolved puzzle now in mathematics. And inevitably, I've started getting emails now from people who think they've possibly cracked it. And of course, I'm in no position to know if they've cracked it or not. It puts me in a difficult position do I? Do I delete that forward to a mathematician and therefore become become the crazy person myself now who's holdingforwarding on theories.
 
Grey 7:37
nowNo this is not a difficult position at all. Delete is the correct answer. This is not this is not something to ponder or feel anxiety over.
 
Brady 7:44
But imagine if giG. CharlieH. Hardy had got his letter from revenuesRamanujan and just said, delete. You know, sometimes you got to have a look and see if there's any gold in there.
 
Grey 7:52
No, no, you do not when people are sending you math proofs, thethrough email to you who they should know is not Actuallyactually, you know, the professor who can necessarily verify this thing?. Yeah, I've actually, I don't know if you've, you've come across this I was just reading. I was reading an interesting book called averagesAverage overIs Over by Tyler Cowen, I think is the author's name. But in it he mentions this thing about how with a lot of modern math proofs for something like the the Riemann conjecture that there basically isn't even any individual human who can know if this is true or not anyanymore. more than thatThat, for that for these big math proofs., Whatwhat the math community does is that they, they break it down into the smallest pieces, they can and farm that off to a whole bunch of experts in those individual areas who then have everyone has to come back with a consensus about whether or not their part is correct and kind of come to a community decision about whether all these pieces fit together and Toto prove the thing as a whole, I don't know if you come across that, but I found that interesting just to think about like, boy, you know, it's not like you, you can eat someone can even just send intoin a proof and and one person can necessarily really work it out on their own.
 
Brady 9:15
I mean, even something like that Poincare can never say it correctly Poincare conjecture, you know, the one. Yeah, it was one of the it's the only one of the seven Millennium problems that has been solved. And even that was sort of just, it was solved by attrition in many ways. I mean, they solved it for all the different dimensions, and then eventually, the only dimension they couldn't solve beforeit for was the third dimension. So that became the, the Holy Grail and this guy called Ted Taylor was noit? No, Hamilton came up with, you know, a way to do it using Ricci flow, but then finally pillmanPerelman who ended up you know, getting all the glory came up with this, this surgery technique that he applied to the Ricci flow that made a solvable So, you know, even even when it's Not a big team doing it. It's usually one person building on all these other, all these other things. And one of the reasons pillmanPerelman gave for rejecting the Millennium prize was he felt like, you shouldn't be giving this prize to one person, you know, I couldn't have done it without Hamilton's work. And I'm not totally convinced. And some of the mathematicians I speak to ataren't totally convinced. Thatthat's the only reason he rejected the million dollars, but it's certainly reason he gave.
 
Grey 10:28
Yeah, I think that that that one was actually mentioned in the, in the book that I was just reading, as an example of a proof that had to be farmed out to a whole bunch of people to try to figure out, you know, is this even correct? Let's, the only thing I might just mention here is that a lot of people commented on how serious I got at the end of the last podcast.
 
Brady 10:50
Yes. I noticed that I was when I was talking. This was when I was talking about my my addiction to checking my email.
 
Grey 10:59
Yes, yeah. That's what you were talking about. And I guess I can't hear it in my own voice but enough people commented on on Reddit that they that they noticed the swing in my tone to suddenly very serious tone. And yes, it is true. I just want to make a little a little comment about that about why, why I'm serious about this. Why I'm so serious. But Internet addiction, email addiction, Twitter addiction,
 
Brady 11:23
evenEven now You sound a little bit more serious
 
Grey 11:25
asAs I'm trying not to be. I don't want this to be an after school special. You know, listen, we all had fun today. But email is serious.
 
Brady 11:34
Yeah. RadioBrady, I've brought for a few of your friends along here to talk on the podcast as well. We all want to speak to you about this problem.
 
Grey 11:40
Yeah, I guess Okay. Good.Gonna Trytry say this without sounding really serious. But, but the reason that I do, like I do take that stuff very seriously. And I and I notice it, just like what the nature of addiction is like, these kind of sort of psychological addictions that you have to things like email, and I'm not talking like a physical addiction like, like a drug. That the if you are doing an experiment on a human and you want to to encourage them to continue intoin a behavior, the best and most effective way to do that is with something called random reinforcement. You know, so if you want some someone or some lab animal, you know, to press a button, the best way to make sure they press that button as often as possible, is to not give them a consistent reward. You know, don't give them a food pellet each time, but give them a random reward. Sometimes they get nothing. Sometimes they get a whole bunch of food pellets. You know, sometimes they get very few food pellets, but there's a random distribution in the reward. And basically for all mammals that is maximally addictive. And this is why things like slot machines can be very addictive for people, right because they're they are random reinforcement. You know, if you put if you put like a quarter in a slot machine, and every time you got back 20 cents, nobody would play them. Right because it'd be like it'd be very obvious what's what's happening, but if you if you vary the the reward that like mammalian brains are just designed to really hook into that kind of behavior. And so that's why that's basically what like Twitter and even, you know, Reddit and email can be really addictive in that way, because they're this random reinforcement, right? Sometimes you go to your email, and it's something really important that you need to know or something really interesting on Reddit. And lots of times, it's just kind of nothing, but your brain is always like hoping for a big payoff. And that's why like we mentioned last time, if someone's like, "Oh, I don't remember opening Twitter but Twitter's open like clearly I did it." Right That's exactly what that is like that's that is a sign that your your brain is engaged in this this random reward response and is really looking for that so that's why I got super serious and I believewill leave it now I will try not to talk about that anymore.
 
Brady 13:54
youYou making me feel really good here with all this talk about like, you know, mammalian brains and behaviors and addictions and like, yeah, Iyou realize I'm kind of part of this conversation. don't you?
 
Grey 14:05
But I am part of this conversation too right. I this is why I'm always sad that I'm not a robot, I'm not that robot in that image before, because I'm keenly aware of like the sad, sad limitations of my own mammal monkey brain. I, like you know, I think I'm this this clever, rational person, right, but I have a monkey brain in my skull, just like every other human does. And that monkey brain is easily distracted, and it doesn't want to pay attention or like it engages in all this horrible self destructive behavior. So that's, this is like, like, being productive is learning to deal with the monkey in your head, who just wants to sit in the sunshine and eat bananas, you know, or go run around and do other kinds of stuff. So that's that Enough, enough with the seriousness. just mentioned a quick link. This is going back a couple shows ago, but on one of my favorite sections of Reddit is a section called changeChange myMy view YouView, which is, a thoughtnot exactly a formal debate, but they have more rules than most sections on Reddit do. And people put forward an argument and then people try to change their view on whatever thethis topic is. And there was an interesting discussion a little while ago that related to our episode about advertising and ad blocking I'll put it in the show notes but the the changedchange my view the the debate topic was you know, if using an ad block is stealing content, stealing, you know, you like that, then so he's going to the bathroom during a commercial break, changedchange my view, so that the person is arguing that that ad blocking on the internet is the equivalent of simply not watching ads on TV. And it's a, as with many of the discussions on that subreddit., It's a very interesting discussion back and forth between a whole bunch of people so I found it interesting to read through and I will put that in the show notes as something related to our episode. I don't even know episode Fourfour or five? I can't keep track of the now. This is seven, right? aroundI seven.think Ohwe're yeah,on this is our last prime number of the experiment then it is our last prime number of the experimentseven. Good.
 
Brady 16:12 07
Oh yeah, this is our last prime number of the experiment then.
Thank you. It was the was this debate cross posted to the newly created freebooting subreddit which I noted the other day.
 
Grey 16:12
It is our last prime number of the experiment. Good on you for thinking that.
 
Brady 16:15
Thank you. It was the wasWas this debate cross posted to the newly created freebooting subreddit which I noted the other day.
 
Grey 16:23
Yes, I saw someone I saw someone made that I took a little screenshot because I thought now you are the one who's pushing this freebooting word. Again, again, internet. I'm totally fine with copyright infringement, though. I will I will admit you're-
 
Brady 16:37
You're fine with copyright infringement.? The term I hope not. the practice?
 
Grey 16:40
Yes, the term the term although I will acknowledge that it is very awkward in certain circumstances. But I noticed, I noticed on the description of the freebooting subreddit. It's this the description is that this is a subreddit that is about those who don't want to pay or sorry about those who don't pay Forfor content, and I think if I'm understanding your use of the term freebooting, that this is not to be confused with piracy. thatThat freebooting is is to be applied to the people who are making money off of content creators,' materials. It's not talking about the people who may be viewing that content elsewhere or just torrenting it or or something else. Is that, is that correct?
 
Brady 17:32
I think rebootingyou, I think you grossly overestimate the amount of thought I've put into the term freebootersfreebooting you disappoint me. But I'll go with whatever you said. I just think it's a cool word. And I think infringement is like, My position is clear on this as is yours. Okay.
 
Unknown SpeakerGrey 17:49
Okay. All right. Yeah. But yeah, someone, Someonesomeone made the freebooting subreddit. I think I haven't, I haven't gone over to look to see how much discussion is over there. Put it in the show notes, man. If this Word catches on in any way. Luck.But I'll beput so proud that that original podcast were brought up that will become like a historic document. It will. They will, that will that will beit in the Oxfordshow English Dictionarynotes. When they when they talk about first usage of a term it'll Yeah, right because that's what they need to have like earliest known use of this word. It'll be Brady. It's a podcast
 
Brady 18:02
Man, If this word catches on in any way. Like, I'll be so proud that that original podcast were brought up that will become like a historic document.
 
Grey 18:12
It will. They will, that will that will be in the Oxford English Dictionary. When they when they talk about first usage of a term it'll Yeah, right because that's what they need to have like earliest known use of this word. It'll be Brady, in a podcast.
 
Grey 18:26
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Brady 20:24
Pi Day,
 
Grey 20:25
It is Pi Day today, the day we are recording,
 
Brady 20:2427
itIt is the 14th of March or March 14. So we get this 314. Rightfor Pi. So we are using the American month there but because there is no sort of third of the 14th month I think even Brits and Europeans are quite happy to, to go with this one.
 
Grey 20:41
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Brady 20:49
Yeah. So obviously making having a YouTube channel all about numbers. I have a tremendous interest in piePi. I think I've made about 15 videos about piePi. Really? Yeah. whole playlist of them.
 
Grey 21:01
Like, it sounds like you need a channel dedicated to piPi at this point, if you've got 15 videos.
 
Brady 21:07
Maybe, maybe. weWe'll stick with stick with the one for now. But so I put a couple of videos up today for this year's Pi Day, but I don't want to talk about them. I want to talk about viaVi heartsHart's video for Pi Day. For those who don't know byVi heart.Hart, Youyou should. Yes, she's a she's certainly a favorite of both both of us. Yes. And and a good friend.
 
Unknown Speaker 21:25
And and a good friend.
 
Brady 21:28
And her video for Pi Day today. Like, like all her videos was excellent. I mean, essentially, in a nutshell. I mean, I hope people will watch it if they haven't already seen it. And I'm sure Great. IGrey'll pop it in the show notes. Yeah, of course. But in a nutshell, she was saying that piePi is no big deal. It's a very it's a very ordinary. It's an ordinary number like every single other number on the number line. And I guess some of the points she made were really good and educational about you know, there are an infinite number of numbers with repeatedrepeating digits and things like that. But the tone of the video was piesPi's no big deal. What's the big deal with Pi Day, piesPi's anda nothing number. And she sort of, you know, was attacking or chipping away at a lot of the things people love about piePi. And fair enough and I and like I said I enjoyed it very much. But I do think that piPi is allowed to be special and exceptional. And whether or not we celebrate piPi daysday, you know, that's just a silly thing, isn't it? But I think it is okay to celebrate piePi and to love piePi. And I love piePi. Now, I want to I've been thinking about why that is. And some of this may be comes back to what you were talking about with kind of this random reinforcement. But I think maybe the, the ordinariness and the complete and utter arbitrariness of piePi is why we love it. That, Thatthat a number that seems so just weirdly out of nowhere, just like a distant, strange number that has nothing special about it to look at it could be comesbecome such a celebrity and it could be cut thembecome so imbued with meaning to us as humans, is what we like about it, like almost, it's almost like a product of its own sort of celebrity. It's a bit like, it's like the number that won the lottery, it won the lottery, like, because of because we chose to put some significance into the ratio of circles diameter to conferencecircumference, because I can and I can see why we did that because the circle is a it is a pretty special shape, but it is just another shape. But because that particular ratio we decided to celebrate. So then we had to go and find the poor old number on the number line that happened to represent that ratio. And this one number was just plucked from Andobscurity and we put on a pedestal and said, Good on you, number you, you know, you have some significance to us because you somehow relate to the wheel. I think that is like I think that appeals to us as humans like the way we are appeal to the lucky person who lands the half court shot at the basketball game or the person who has the hundred million dollar winning lottery ticket. I mean, there's nothing special about that person. They just were in the right place at the right time. They were plucked from obscurity amongst all the other humans. And I think that like gives us like some kind of I think it appeals to us. I know I know robot like usyou not going to understand that.
 
Grey 24:40
Find your anthropomorphize agentanthropomorphisation of piPi, just ludicrous.
 
Brady 24:44
Really, I think. I think it's a very human thing to do. Like, you know, like, like, like, like, like how some people have a soft spot for Saturn because it's got rings or, you know, we we look for little-
 
Grey 25:00
That is different I just think you description of, of I Oh, there's others there's all these poor numbers milling around and like we as a society have taken this one number and and raised him up to celebrity status and he was the he was the lucky guy in the right place at the right time. I don't know I find that that whole description very hard to relate to and very particularfunny to-
 
Brady 25:24
I want to know what do you think do you think, do you subscribe to you know, what's the big deal with piePi it's it's you know it's a number of you know,
 
Grey 25:33
you well okay you met you?... Well first of all I just to mention about VIVi's video. If you haven't watched it go watch it now and then come back. The link is in the show notes because there will be mild spoilers for the video. Okay. But the thing that thing that I liked about the video was basically viaVi was going through all of the things that are normally said about the uniqueness of piePi and pointing out how they are not unique and she was Doingdoing it with very typical viaVi humor. Like I, she really got me to laugh out loud a couple times in the video. Yeah. You know when she was really good. Yeah, like when she when she pointed out that you know people talk about how it has an infinite number of digits in it. Well five has an infinite number of digits, it just so happens to be that all those digits are zero, right? But so the infiniteness of these numbers is not special. And something that I hadn't ever really thought about. But talking about irrational numbers that there's an infinite number of irrational numbers. It's not like there's just a couple of special ones and piePi and hee happened to be those special numbers, which is something I never really thought about in that exact way, which is why I like fiveVi's videos. She's always pointing out these things. So she was just taking apart all of the the unique elements of piePi and I think doing it, doing it in a very good way. I really, I really liked it.
 
Brady 26:50
And I had a lot of I had a lot. It was thought provoking for that reason. Yeah, it was good. But I still think it's okay to to love pie and think it's special.
 
Grey 26:52
Yeah, it was good.
 
Brady 26:55
But I still think it's okay to to love Pi and think it's special.
 
Grey 26:59
Okay, so now Beforebefore, before I tell you my opinions on this, I will first say that back in high school when I was doing Driver's Ed, and I was very, very bored. I actually spent a bunch of time memorizing the digits of Pi know because I was a nerdy person. Now I'm not I'm not like one of these, these Olympiads who memorizes 10s of thousands of digits, but I had somewhere around the first 200 digits wisememorised like that. Massive. Well, it's impressive. It sounds impressive, it is not as impressive as actually sounds, because I was using, you know, this memory techniques for this kinds of things where you can transform digits into words and then the words into sentences. And so it's not as hard as it as it actually sounds to memorize an arbitrary sequence of digits. You know, this is this is basically a technique that I learned for school and to memorize stuff. And so then I was just, you know, just doing this as as a as a boredom kind of thing, and I thought it was was cool, right? Because I'm, I was a nerdy High School guy. And I never came across town. until some point when I was in college. I don't remember exactly when. But some math professor brought it up.
 
Brady 27:23
Wow. That is impressive. That is impressive.
 
Grey 27:25
It sounds impressive, it is not as impressive as actually sounds, because I was using, you know, there's memory techniques for this kinds of things where you can transform digits into words and then the words into sentences. And so it's not as hard as it as it actually sounds to memorize an arbitrary sequence of digits. You know, this is this is basically a technique that I learned for school and to memorize stuff. And so then I was just, you know, just doing this as as a as a boredom kind of thing, and I thought Pi was was cool, right? Because I'm, I was a nerdy High School guy. And I never came across Tau until some point when I was in college. I don't remember exactly when. But some math professor brought it up.
 
Brady 28:16
This is a two piPi. This is twice piePi. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a more obvious constant to us.
 
Grey: 28:17
Yeah. Yeah.
 
Brady 28:19
Which some people argue is a more obvious constant to use.
 
Grey 28:22
Yeah. So basically, I think the, to sum it up, as piePi is based on the diameter of the circle. And tauTau is based on the radius of the circle. And the argument is usually that in when we're talking about both most shapes, you talk about their most fundamental partspart, and for a circle is most fundamental part of the radius, not the diameter. And so piPi is a little weird that it's using this non -fundamental part of the shape to to define it. So my opinion on the whole piePi versus townTau debate is one of utility. When I heard about howTau honest to God, so much of trigonometry really clicked in my mind, and I thought, Ohuggh, I know this is just a conversion of a factor of two. But boy did it., Suddenlysuddenly, trigonometry made a whole lot more sense in my mind with the pie as I wasPi..sorry, switching from piPi to tauTau. And so that's why I have I have read things from other mathematicians saying that this is a ...way out of my league. But that tauTau is only really useful in this kind of high school college level math and that when you get beyond this level, you know, maybe there are there are arguments in favor of piePi. I don't really know those arguments. But I would just say for the level of math that I was doing, TaoTau made things just instantly, so much simpler. And, you know, being able to understand like the sine function, you know, talking about every every kid who's High School is listening to me now, right? You have to do I know you have to memorize these things, you know, what is the sine of piPi over two? What is the sine of piPi over four and you need to have these things off the top of your head. And it just, I know, it seems like it's completely arbitrary. But if you if you use tauTau instead, it's always just a fraction of the the direction around a circle. So if someone asks you, you know, what's the signsine of tau over forfour, you just have to think okay, well, I go a fourth of the way around the circle. And if you imagine that on a number line, it's very obviously one I hope I'm doing this right in my head. And and so, you know, or a towelTau over totwo, you go halfway around the circle, you know, what's the height ofat zero. soSo I am in favor of towelTau because it just to me made so much or trigonometry make immediate sense. Where the piePi stuff I had always had a hard time with pinePi and radians and never quite gotten it., Soso.
 
Brady 30:53
Well, there was some good there are some good videos on there are some good number fivenumberphile videos on it. You'd probably enjoy the filmPhil realityMoriarty wentone about BecauseTau, because he, he's protelpro Tau and talks about some of those things you were just talking about. But even if you use towelTau, it's still just, you know, it's still an arbitrary constant. Where do you stand on this idea of us? ...celebrating an arbitrary number and, you know, having these celebrity numbers?
 
Grey 31:16
Well, I think celebrity numbers, I know what you mean. So think it's a funny term. I mean, I would say I am, I am for it. You know, for example, I love the fact that there is a Pi Daysay, I'm not going to get all grumpy because I think TaoTau is a better number, and then we're having a PIPi day because there's like, this whole day allows this discussion to happen and you can talk about math and it brings math up as a topic so I'm very much in favor of that.
 
Brady 31:43
And it's Einstein's birthday of course.
That goes
 
Grey 31:44
Oh is it? I did not know that.
with it. I did not know that. So yeah, I'm in favor of celebrity numbers. I know I can't conceive of of a reason not to be and if you know if people really like pie, I think I think I think maybe part of the celebrity of pi is that it is an interesting looking number, right? Whereas towel looks too much like a tea and the imaginary number is an eye symbol. It's a cool symbol. Yeah, it's a very cool symbol. Or if people who've been following me on Twitter know that I have been re working my way through the wire, the TV series series for probably the fourth or fifth time now, man, that's a good show. Yeah, man, I could talk about that forever. And there is a character in the second season who has a PI tattoo on the back of his neck. And I was wondering if this is I assume that maybe it's the actors tattoo. I was I was always kind of curious about that. Cuz it's a detail that as the striking in the second season, and seems a little bit out of place. But yeah, the PI symbol is just cool. So I can see why it is it is more prominent as a feature or it looks cool on movie posters. You know, if you want to have something mathy you put a pie up there, it's immediately recognizable. Whereas lots of other mass symbols. They're just using boring old regular letters, you know, and it's that's that's not as interesting. But yeah, so I I'm in favor of,
 
Brady 31:45
Mhmm, I believe so
 
Grey 31:46
So yeah, I'm in favor of celebrity numbers. I know I can't conceive of of a reason not to be and if you know if people really like Pi, I think I think I think maybe part of the celebrity of Pi is that it is an interesting looking number, right? Whereas Tau looks too much like a T and the imaginary number is an i.
 
Brady 31:58
It's a cool symbol, its a cool symbol yeah.
 
Grey 32:00
It's a very cool symbol. Or if people who've been following me on Twitter know that I have been re working my way through The Wire, the TV series series for probably the fourth or fifth time now.
 
Brady 32:11
man, that's a good show.
 
Grey 32:12
with it. I did not know that. So yeah, I'm in favor of celebrity numbers. I know I can't conceive of of a reason not to be and if you know if people really like pie, I think I think I think maybe part of the celebrity of pi is that it is an interesting looking number, right? Whereas towel looks too much like a tea and the imaginary number is an eye symbol. It's a cool symbol. Yeah, it's a very cool symbol. Or if people who've been following me on Twitter know that I have been re working my way through the wire, the TV series series for probably the fourth or fifth time now, man, that's a good show. Yeah, man, I could talk about that forever. And there is a character in the second season who has a PIPi tattoo on the back of his neck. And I was wondering if this is I assume that maybe it's the actors tattoo. I was I was always kind of curious about that. Cuz it's a detail that asis the striking in the second season, and seems a little bit out of place. But yeah, the PIPi symbol is just cool. So I can see why it is it is more prominent as a feature or it looks cool on movie posters. You know, if you want to have something mathy you put a pie up there, it's immediately recognizable. Whereas lots of other massmaths symbols. They're just using boring old regular letters, you know, and it's that's that's not as interesting. But yeah, so I guess I'm in favor of, "celebrity numbers".
 
Brady 33:01
wellWell, I'm sorry for humanizing numbers like that. I mean, I am I am rather sleep deprived, and maybe maybe my brain is addled. But I think I am a bit more like that I quite like theidea.
 
Grey 33:16
No, I'm in favor of thisthese Libertycelebrity numbers. I just I think the the level of your description just just struck me as very funny.
 
Brady 33:21
I mean, it's an analogy isn't that you get that? Ofof course.? I don't knowactually anything.think they're humans, but I think we can. I think we like I think people like, you know, just appeals to our love of-
 
Grey 33:31
peoplePeople like the underdog is that what you're saying?
 
Unknown Speaker 33:33
exactly what
 
Brady 33:34
That's exactly what I was about to say.! It's an underdog. Who would have thought that some little obscure irrational number just sit insitting a little way after three could have become the hero of numbers. And yet he did. He did. He said he sat there. He sat there thinking I'm never going to amount to anything. And then one day, he became the symbol that even CGP Grey talks about on his podcast.
 
Grey 33:56
You should read hiswrite a book.
 
Unknown SpeakerBrady 33:5658
Haha, I think I've been beaten to it.
You should read his book.
 
Grey 34:00
Unknown Speaker 33:58
I think I've been beaten to Write a children's book about the heroic Pi
 
Unknown SpeakerBrady 34:02
maybeMaybe I should thinkmake fifteen videos about it instead.
 
Brady 34:04
Yeah, right. What's going on with you? I think I think we have even for a celebrity number we have given piePi. It's usdues today.
 
Grey 34:10
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