In non-euclidean spaces, your definition of pi wouldn't even be a value. It's not well defined because the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle is dependent on the size of the circle and the curvature inside the circle.
It's probably true that it's only well defined in euclidean space. Your relaxed definition, which I have never seen before, is not very useful.
I don't agree, I thought what he said was very interesting. It never occurred to me that pi might vary, and over a non-flat space I can see what they're saying. I think it's intrinsically interesting simply because it breaks one of my preconceptions, that pi is a constant. Talking about it being 'not very useful' just seems far too casually dismissive.
Pi doesn't vary. The ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle may vary depending on the geometry. Clearly everyone means euclidean space unless specified otherwise. Any other interpretation will only lead to problems, which is why it's not useful. There is really no ambiguity about this in mathematics. Mathematicians still use the pi symbol as a constant when they compute the circumference of a circle in a given geometry as a function of the radius.
> Pi doesn't vary. The ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle may vary depending on the geometry.
Can you share some place where Pi isn't defined exclusively as being "the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle"? I have never heard any other definition in my life, and couldn't find any other through the first few Google results
"This definition of π implicitly makes use of flat (Euclidean) geometry; although the notion of a circle can be extended to any curve (non-Euclidean) geometry, these new circles will no longer satisfy the formula π = C / d"
Pi is the "the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle in Euclidian space". Everyone agrees that. What people are arguing is that when you have a circle in non-Euclidian space, so that the ratio of it's circumference to diameter is different, do we still call this new ratio Pi.
Most people would argue that we don't. They say "the ratio is not Pi" rather than "Pi is a different value".
There is no "clearly" in Math. The fact that pi is a constant while at the same time not being "the same constant" in all spaces, and not even being "a single value, even if we alias it as the symbol pi" is what makes it a fun fact.
Heaven forbid people learn something about math that extends beyond the obvious, how dare they!
I don't know which ones you read so I can't comment on that, but the ones I read most definitely specify which fields of math they apply to, and which axioms are assumed true before doing the work, because the math is meaningless without that?
Papers on non-Euclidean spaces always call that out, because it changes which steps can be assumed safe in a proof, and which need a hell of a lot of motivation.
And of course, that said: yeah, there are papers for proofs about things normally associated with decimal numbers that explicit call out that the numbers they're going to be using are actually in a different base, and you're just going to have to follow along. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway_base_13_function is probably the most famous example?
Ur being rather snotty about this. I've just realised something important which is so obvious to you that you consider it trivial, but it's not. I realised something important today, you might just want to feel pleased for me, and a bit pleased that the world is a little less ignorant today...? Or not?
Sorry for coming off as snotty. It wasn't my intention, I thought my statements were rather matter of fact. It's possible that after having attended two lectures on differential geometry I have forgotten that some of these things like circumference ratios and sum of angles of triangles being different in a curved geometry are not obvious to every one. I'm glad you learned something!
Yes. That's what makes it a fun fact. Most people never even learn about non-euclidean math, and this is the kind of "wow I never even thought about this" that people should be able to learn about in a comment thread.
Calling it painful to read is downright weird. Pi, the constant, has one value, everywhere. So now let's learn about what pi can also be and how that value is not universal.
π never changes its value. Ever. It is a constant in mathematics, no matter the geometry. However, π can have different ratios in other geometries, but it will still be ~3.14.
It is painful because this statement:
> draw a circle on a sphere. That circle has a curved diameter that is bigger than if you drew it on a flat sheet of paper. The ratio of the circle circumference to its diameter is less than 3.1415etc, so is that a different pi? You bet it is: that's the pi associated with that particular non-Euclidean, closed 2D plane.
The problem here is *projections*. If you project non-Euclidean space onto Euclidean space, you end up with some seemingly nonsensical things, like straight lines that get projected into arcs. This is your problem. You projected a curved line from non-Euclidean space onto Euclidean space and got an arc, but didn't account for the curvature of your "real non-Euclidean space" and thus ended up with an invalid value for π. If you got something that isn't ~3.14, then you did the math wrong somewhere along the way.
Let's say you live in a non-flat space. You come up with the idea of a "circle" with the usual definition: the set of points on the same plane equidistant from a central point.
You then trace along the circle and measure the length, and compare it to the length of the diameter. It turns out that this ratio changes as a function of the diameter. This truth is inherent to curved spaces themselves, and is not an artifact of choosing to describe the space using a projection.
The definition of pi in this world is no longer the invariant ratio of diameter to circumference. You can still recover pi by taking the limit of this ratio as the diameter length goes to zero. But perhaps mathematicians in this world would (justifiably) not see pi as such a fundamental number.
Now back to GP's example: people living on a sphere (like us) are analogous to inhabitants of a non-Euclidean space. The surface of Earth is analogous to 3-space, and the curvature of Earth is analogous to the curvature of space.
And indeed, if you draw real-life larger and larger circles on our planet, you will find that the ratio of circumference to diameter is smaller than pi. For example, if you start at some point on the Earth (say, the North pole) and trace out a circle 100 miles distant from it, you will find that the circumference of that circle (as measured by walking around that circle) is a little bit _less_ than pi x 100 miles.
Again, we have done no "projection" here. We've limited ourselves to operations that are fairly natural from the perspective of a mathematician living in that space, such as measuring lengths.
The fact that large circle circumferences measure less than pi x diameter on Earth did not change how we developed math, likely because you only notice start to notice this effect with extremely large (relative to us) circles.
But perhaps the inhabitants of a non-Euclidean space that was much more highly curved would notice it much earlier, and it would affect their development of maths, such that the number pi is held in lower regard.
Thanks for the original comment—I picked up something new that I hadn't considered before.
That said, you could spin this by suggesting that the mathematician living in that non-Euclidean space might also have a different perspective on numbers. If we assume pi is still constant for him, then the numbers he's always known could be shifting in value but maybe that's a stretch.
It's probably true that it's only well defined in euclidean space. Your relaxed definition, which I have never seen before, is not very useful.