Legislating Pi

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Did you know that Indiana tried to legislate the value of pi to be 3.2? In 1897, a physician named Edward J.

[00:00:05]Goodwin almost convinced the Indiana legislature to pass a bill that essentially declared pi, the circle constant, to be exactly 3.2. Goodwin had claimed to have squared the circle, trisected the angle, and doubled the cube, all known to be impossible. He produced a diagram as follows. He started with a square with diagonal length 10, so that half the diagonal length is five. No problem yet. Then he circumscribed the square with a circle, still no problem. But then he noted, quote, "It has revealed the ratio of the chord and arc of 90°, which is as 7 to 8." So, he thought the side length of the square was seven, and that the length of 1/4 of the circular arc was eight. These two facts would imply that pi is exactly 32/10, and that the square root of two is exactly 10/7. Luckily, a Purdue professor C. Waldo convinced the Indiana Senate not to vote on the bill, even though the State House of Representatives did pass it. Don't worry, pi is and will always be the irrational number that is roughly 3.14159.