tecoyah

Pretty funny...considering the current Intellegent design debates.



Dover Math Teachers Required to Offer 'Alternative Value' for Pi


DOVER, Pennsylvania - The Dover school board has raised eyebrows and ire across Pennsylvania and the country after requiring math teachers to offer 3 as an acceptable value of Pi. Pi is the name given to the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, commonly accepted to be 3.141592, though the actual number is believed to go on endlessly, without repeating. "That's all well and good," said Maureen Callister, Dover school board member, "But what about God? Doesn't he have a say?" Callister cited the Bible, First Kings chapter 7, verse 23, where it says, "He [King Solomon] proceeded to make the molten sea ten cubits from its brim to its other brim, [...] and it took a line of thirty cubits to circle all around it." "If 3 is a good enough 'pi' for the Almighty, then it ought to be good enough for us," stated Callister.

"Listen, I go to church on Sundays, I tithe, I don't need this."
-- Timothy Ernesto, Math Teacher
"Listen, I go to church on Sundays, I tithe, I don't need this," said Timothy Ernesto, a 10th grade math teacher in the district, "I need to get these kids ready for the rest of their lives, the SAT's, the ACT, the whole alphabet soup of testing they'll face before college. On top of all that, I have to teach an 'alternate reality' flavor of mathematics? I'm going to need my summer off!"

Dover, having come under fire for its recent decision to teach 'intelligent design' as an alternative to evolution, is raising more than just the ire of its math teachers. "They've gotten the passage all wrong," said Mordecai Price, pastor of Dover's First Angelic Salvation Church of Redemption, "It isn't meant to be interpreted as exactly 10 cubits or exactly 30 cubits. When did you ever read about 3.14 cubits? If we simply assume that the diameter was 9.65 cubits and the circumference was 30.32 cubits, then we get a very reasonable ratio of 3.142. They've simply failed to allow the correct understanding to shine through."

"We firmly believe that God already explained himself adequately, and he doesn't need us to second-guess him," defended Callister, "Besides, who ever really uses this stuff after school, anyway?"

http://www.thebentinel.com/041201-al...ue-for-pi.html

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uncle phil

i guess all our circles will be turning into squares, triangles, parallelograms, etc...no round edges, no smooth soft curves...i'm such a sinner...

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welshbyte

Hehe, good read... i almost thought it was real too. I guess my faith in common sense in those places has taken a nosedive since the stickers on evolution books thing.

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miyamotomusashi

I dont think the bible was intended as a math book.

"Earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is limitless."
Gustave Flaubert

"Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs."
Scott Adams

"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
Don Marquis

Is this real? Are there any other sources backing up this story?

fckm

Um, the article is satire

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Slavakion

It's sad when something like that is convincing until the last paragraph.

TexanAvenger

As a math lover myself... You have absolutely GOT to be kidding. I hope to god (the one I don't believe in) that you are kidding me. And I thought Dover would be safe from the Bible-Belt politics like this....

paddyjoe

Oh just think of those poor Pennsylvania Dutch. It's gonna be hell on em when they try to build more wagon wheels.

1010011010

Incidentally...

It's 30 cubits around (inner circumference) and 10 cubits from brim-to-brim (outer diameter). This would give the big ol' thing a wall thickness of about half a cubit without breaking geometry.

Taking a cubit at 18 inches, the thickness of the rim would be 8.11 inches. By 1Kings7:26 the thickness of the rim is a "handbreadth"... 8.11" is a reasonable "handbreadth".

Maybe it's more specific what, exactly, is being measured in the originals, but there are a couple different ways to read it. And lets not even bring up the subject of significant figures.

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Stiltzkin

Kids should be forced to memorize the first 100 digits of pi, like the good lord intended.

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1010011010

The first 100? Who needs that level of precision? 355/113 would be acceptable (gives you 3.141592 before going wrong).

I think it was 29 digits that's sufficient to calculate the size of the universe with an error less than the atomic radius of a carbon atom. 100 digits is overkill.

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