I understand the mathematical definition of Pi, but why does it end up being used in so many formulas and applications in math, engineering, physics, etc? What does it unlock?
Edit: I understand Pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter. But why is that fact make it important and useful. For example it shows up in the equation for standard normal distribution. What does Pi have to do with a normal distribution. That’s just one example.
In: 3
What do we have to change about our universe so that Pi is no longer everywhere?
The universal laws of our universe is uniform, meaning that physics is the same everywhere in our universe. At least, that’s our assumption, and as far as we can observe, that is the case. Part if this observation is that, there is no special “direction” — information propagate at the same speed in all directions.
With this in mind, let’s look at what happens when anything happens in our universe, what rule governs how information about that event propagates outwards? That’s right, since information travels at the same speed in all directions, it forms a sphere ( in 3D universe), with the origin point at the center, which means Pi is involved.
To get rid of Pi, we can try to imagine what would it take so information propagates outwards in a cube? How about making it so that the speed of light is faster along a magical universal set of 6 cardinal directions (up, down, front, back, left, right), and gets slower linearly…
Latest Answers