Not when that definition of pi goes to all 300 trillion decimals that we have resolved. (To be fair, I don’t know of any that do… but eh…yeah. And I’m pretty sure it was defined by a masochist if one did.)

That leads to unnecessary time spent calculating even simple equations. That level of precision is almost never actually needed.

With fermi problems, usually that level of precision is moot and potentially a waste of time. (Particularly when the math is requiring some kind network cluster to do.)

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Pi has it's own button on most graphing calculators, and those that don't usually only requure 2 button presses to get it. Meanwhile, there's some iteration of 'pi()', 'pi', etc. in most programming languages

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Sure.

But sometimes, the problems are complex enough that solve time becomes a concern. When they’re complex enough, you start asking “is everything these precise enough to justify that” and when the answer is “no”, then you don’t do that because runtime on networked clusters like AWS costs money.

And when you’re talking about scales that encompass the galaxy…. Well. There’s just not a lot of precision there to begin with.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The counterpoint to that is that including a term for pi (or even rounding it to 3.14) would insignificant to add and look way more professional

[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago

…. Are you reading what I’m saying?

Yes. For simple, common problems. You are correct.

But sometimes they’re not running simple problems. Sometimes, the run time on servers costs money. Sometimes, there’s no value to be gained by being any more accurate- and it increases those costs.

Now, in those times…. Are you really going to tell me that costing your organization more money without any useful gains…. Is “way more professional”?

Also? Don’t get me wrong, that threshold is getting and higher every year. I have more computing power in my cell phone than they used to put a man on the moon.

None of that changes that astronomers sometimes use 1 instead of pi, and that the barycenter of Jupiter-sun orbit is close enough to say Jupiter orbits the sun.