this post was submitted on 17 May 2025
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Has the imperial system gone to far? (feddit.org)
submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In Terry Pratchett's wonderfully witty Discworld novel, Going Postal, the topic of pi comes up in a rather humorous and characteristically Pratchettian way.

The newly appointed Postmaster General, Moist von Lipwig, encounters a rather eccentric inventor named Bloody Stupid Johnson. Bloody Stupid Johnson is known for his, well, stupidly brilliant inventions. One of these inventions is a new kind of postal sorting engine.

When discussing the design of a wheel for this engine, Bloody Stupid Johnson proudly states that he designed it so that pi is exactly three.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This is in contrast with how pi is otherwise consistently expressed on the Disc, which is "three and a bit."

Notably, Bloody Stupid Johnson is so skilled/inept that he actually does make pi equal to three within the machine... somehow... which breaks reality in a small amount of space inside it.

Apparently King David had this skill as well, since this is mentioned twice in the old testament:

1 Kings 7:23: And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

Clearly π was equal to 3 in old testament times, but geometry got all screwy when Jesus died for our sines.