Perhaps the analogy was too drawn-out. I did stray from my point quite a bit. The analogy overall was... ridiculous to begin with, and perhaps a little inspired by lack out thinking statements through
Quote from: Blizzard on November 19, 2012, 04:42:44 am
math has no artistic value, it's an exact science, not something you bring creativity into.
I disagree. Science != !Creativity (forgive me if there's a less stupid way of writing that expression, I haven't done any programming in a rather long time XD)
I understand why you say that. However, I do not agree.
Quote from: Blizzard on November 19, 2012, 04:42:44 am
You could say it's not about beauty or simplicity, it's about usability
Yes, you could say that. But beauty and simplicity should be made the best of, because they make things easier to understand, especially in a situation where there is nothing to lose. Pi works, Pi is usable, yes. But Tau also works just as well, Tau is just as usable,
and it makes things more elegant and nice and all of those words I've already said. Besides, isn't simplicity a large role in usability anyway? The simpler formula is the more usable one. And we know that mathematical beauty is basically simplicity and elegance of concepts that seem complex or confusing at first glance.
Mathematical beauty is comparable to music. When something works (usability), that's expected, it's what music is supposed to do. When something sounds nice (beauty), that's good. When something is interesting, something achieved by veiling complexity with simplicity, that's great. But when a piece works, sounds good, and is interesting musically, that's the epitome of musical perfection. It's better. Why would we settle for Mozart's 40th (which works, is simple and sounds nice) when we can have Beethoven's 3rd (which works, is interesting and sounds awesome. Sorry, bit of opinion going on here. But I think my point's been made) ? The same idea applies to this argument of Tau vs Pi. Again, I'll say that I only care about this argument in the domain of trigonometry and circular functions. I'm neutral about this in any other domain of mathematics. I just think that students should be given the opportunity to understand trig and circles in the best possible way, and to me, that's with Tau.
I think this has gotten to the point where we're arguing about arguing instead of arguing about Tau and Pi and maths and stuff.
(Also, was that analogy any better or am I just digging my grave here?)
(Also also, I shouldn't have chosen Mozart's 40th as my go-to average piece. It's just the first piece that came to mind. Don't get me wrong, it's a fantastic piece. It's just that Beethoven's 3rd is my favourite piece of classical music.)
(Also also also, I am spending way too long on these posts and I think I'm just repeating myself in progressively stupider ways. So I'm gonna go to sleep.)