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	<title>porges &#187; thoughts</title>
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		<title>Compare and Contrast</title>
		<link>http://porg.es/blog/compare-and-contrast</link>
		<comments>http://porg.es/blog/compare-and-contrast#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:40:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Porges</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[compare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comparison]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[contrast]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sudden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thoughts]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://porg.es/blog/?p=162</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Coldplay’s ‘42’ from Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends (starting about 1:45), Nine Inch Nails ‘Complication’ from The Fragile.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/06/VivaLaVida.jpg" title="Viva La Vida album cover" class="aligncenter" width="300" height="300" /></p>
<p>Coldplay’s ‘42’ from <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viva_la_Vida">Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends</a></i> (starting about 1:45), Nine Inch Nails ‘Complication’ from <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fragile">The Fragile</a></i>.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6a/Nin-the_fragile800.jpg" title="The Fragile album cover" class="aligncenter" width="300" height="263" /></p>
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		<title>Music Post #1</title>
		<link>http://porg.es/blog/music-post-1</link>
		<comments>http://porg.es/blog/music-post-1#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2008 11:45:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Porges</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[music]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[maybe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thought]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thoughts]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Is it just me, or does &#8220;Race: In&#8221; from Battles&#8217; album Mirrored reference Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells heavily? Update: Fleet Foxes ‘Quiet Houses’ does this even more.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Is it just me, or does &#8220;Race: In&#8221; from Battles&#8217; album <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirrored_(album)">Mirrored</a></i> reference Mike Oldfield’s <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_Bells">Tubular Bells</a></i> heavily?</p>
<p>Update: Fleet Foxes ‘Quiet Houses’ does this even more.</p>
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		<title>2π better than π?</title>
		<link>http://porg.es/blog/2%cf%80-better-than-%cf%80</link>
		<comments>http://porg.es/blog/2%cf%80-better-than-%cf%80#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:29:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Porges</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[commentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mathematics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thoughts]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[I just came across Bob Palais’ article from 2001, entitled Pi is wrong! He makes some very interesting points; however the notation he has chosen is rather unfortunate. The definition of his three-legged ‘2π’ is given as: \def \newpi{{\pi\mskip -7.8 mu \pi}} This, when rendered by pdfLaTeX, gives: Zoomed in, we can see the problems [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I just came across Bob Palais’ article from 2001, entitled <a href="http://www.math.utah.edu/~palais/pi.pdf">Pi is wrong!</a> He makes some very interesting points; however the notation he has chosen is rather unfortunate. The definition of his three-legged ‘2π’ is given as:</p>

<div class="wp_syntax"><div class="code"><pre class="latex" style="font-family:monospace;"><span style="color: #E02020; ">\</span><span style="color: #800000;">def</span> <span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\newpi</span><span style="color: #E02020; ">{</span><span style="color: #2020C0; font-weight: normal;">{<span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\pi</span><span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\mskip</span> -7.8 mu <span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\pi</span></span><span style="color: #E02020; ">}}</span></pre></div></div>

<p>This, when rendered by pdfLaTeX, gives:</p>
<p><img src='http://porg.es/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/pii.png' alt='Pii' ></p>
<p>Zoomed in, we can see the problems with the symbol. I propose instead that the symbol defined as this should be used:</p>

<div class="wp_syntax"><div class="code"><pre class="latex" style="font-family:monospace;"><span style="color: #E02020; ">\</span><span style="color: #800000;">newcommand</span><span style="color: #E02020; ">{</span><span style="color: #2020C0; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\cak</span></span><span style="color: #E02020; ">}{</span><span style="color: #2020C0; font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\mathring</span><span style="color: #800000; font-weight: normal;">\pi</span></span><span style="color: #E02020; ">}</span></pre></div></div>

<p><img src='http://porg.es/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/cak.png' alt='Cak' ></p>
<p>This symbol (rendered here in Zapf’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMS_Euler">Euler</a>) displays nicely the idea of pi as a full circle—and it has a nice tie-in with ancient mathematics: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diophantus">Diophantus</a> used M̊ (an M with a ring above it) to represent the unit term in polynomial equations&#8230; we can think of pi as the ‘unit’ of angle.</p>
<p>Oh, and the name ‘cak’ is due to <a href="http://reddit.com/user/apotheon/">apotheon</a> on Reddit, because:</p>
<blockquote><p>As pi is to pie, so cak is to cake. Cakes are usually somewhere around twice as big as pies (in terms of height/volume), too.</p>
</blockquote>
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