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Feb. 5, 1897: Indiana Pols Forced to Eat Humble Pi
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Feb 06, 2008 12:20pm |
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| Category | Proposed Legislation |
| News Date | Tuesday, February 5, 2008 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | 1897: Egged on by an amateur mathematician, the Indiana General Assembly almost passes a bill adopting 3.2 as the exact value of pi (or π). Only the intervention of a Purdue University mathematician who happens to be visiting the legislature prevents the bill from becoming law, saving the most acute political embarrassment.
What became known as the Indiana pi bill was sponsored by Rep. T.I. Record at the behest of Edwin J. Goodwin, a physician and math dilettante who claimed to have figured out how to square circles.
House Bill 246, proposed as "an act introducing a new mathematical truth," went through three reads before being passed unanimously by the House, presumably to avoid having to endure a fourth.
House 246 was sent on to the state Senate and was on the verge of passage when everyone's bacon was serendipitously saved by C.A. Waldo, a Purdue mathematics professor who happened to be in the Statehouse on another matter. Shown the bill and offered an introduction to the genius whose theory it was, Waldo declined, saying he already knew enough crazy people. |
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