Tyree's Tuppence
by Tyree Campbell
Let Them Eat p
Not long ago I read that mathematicians had calculated p to a million places. This is a significant achievement for that field of knowledge, and useful if one has a circle with a diameter of, say, a yottameter, for one can then calculate, precisely, that circle's circumference. Of course, the only place in the known Universe where one might find a circle of such diameter is a solar system, where one deals with orbital diameters--and those orbits are always elliptical because all bodies are subjected to a multitude of gravitational pulls.
In an ideal system, where nothing exists save two bodies, one of which orbits the other, the orbit would describe a circle. Fortunately in mathematics and astronomy, ideal systems can never be real.
Despite the million-place p, most of us make do with 22/7 or 3.14 or, in extreme cases, 3.1416. Suppose, frex, you have a circle 1 meter in diameter. The circumference of that circle is 3.1416 meters. Let's round that off to 3.142 meters. In rounding off, the difference is 0.0004 meters. That's 0.4 millimeters, not quite half a millimeter. How big is half a millimeter? About the same as the combined thickness of two sheets of paper. How does it compare to the overall distance? Well, 3.1416 meters is approximately 123.68 inches, or just over 10 feet 3 and a half inches. At that level of precision, in rounding off you're talking about a difference of the thickness of two sheets of paper over a distance of better than 10 feet. You'd have to be a human caliper to notice that. Maybe.
I'm guessing that's too much precision for your daily life. Perhaps if you were a manufacturer of machine tools, or dealt with subatomic matter, or make adjustments on the Hubble telescope, you would find all this rather tame.
Another reason mathematicians take the measure of p to a million decimal places is because they can. But most of us make do with 3.14 for a value of p.
Not all that many years ago, one could turn on the television set and find a football game. This game, by and large, consisted of various actions by the two teams involved to transport manually a football across an established goal line, or to prevent such transportation. Whenever there was a score, or a time-out, or a change of possession, the television channel cut to a brief series of commercials. The game took just under three hours to play, with about half an hour of that time consumed by commercials, twenty minutes by a half-time intermission, and approximately 90 minutes of players standing around and discussing what they were going to do next. Still, the progression of the program was linear. It began with the opening kickoff, and ended with the final whistle. Those who watched the game, either at the stadium or in the living room, concluded with sounds of elation at victory or dismay at defeat, combined with perhaps a few references to the ancestry and mating habits of the referees. Then the audience resumed its normal Sunday activities.
Nowadays, as those of you know who watch football or at least have a game on in the background, games last anywhere from twenty to thirty minutes longer. Most of this additional time is taken up by instant replay. Without putting too fine a point on it, referee decisions made on certain plays can be called for review, to determine whether the decision was correct. If the decision was deemed incorrect based on a review of the play via instant replay, the decision is overturned and reversed. What enables this, of course, is technology. In former days, to review what happened on a particular play, one had to make a video record of the play--a movie, usually--and view the play again well after the game. Now, this can be done almost instantaneously--and of course the play is run on the stadium videotron for the audience to see . . . to see how a referee has screwed up [you'll note that it's never how a player screwed up; only referees can screw up].
Well.
The rationale for instant replay is to make sure the decision is correct, because too much is riding on games not to have the correct decisions made. [Part of the truth is that there is too much money being wagered in Las Vegas over the outcome of games, and Las Vegas wants to be absolutely sure it has to pay out. But you didn't hear me say that. I don't need any unexpected visits from Vinnie the Left Nut]. Why this rationale does not apply to all referee decisions has never been satisfactorily explained. However, the point is that, with our technology, all referee decisions in all sports can be reviewed for accuracy--and probably, within the next several years, because of the money riding on the outcomes, and because we can, all decisions will be reviewed.
You doubt that? Hmm. On 16 November 2008, just two weeks ago as I write this, a game was decided by a score of 11-10. On the very last play of that game, the winning team scored a touchdown by recovering a fumble. The touchdown was not allowed by the referees. . . incorrectly! After the game the referees actually admitted as much! The final score should have been 17-10 or 18-10. Win-wise, of course, this is irrelevant: a win by any score remains a win. But in Las Vegas, bets are placed based on something called a "spread." Frex, a team might be favored to win a game by, say, six points. So you can bet on the favored team, or you can bet that its opponent will come within five points of the favored team. That six points is what is referred to as the "spread." [I say "five" points because to win such a bet, the unfavored team has to beat the spread].
In the 11-10 score, the winning team did not cover the betting spread--that is, it did not beat the other team by the number of points it was favored to win by. If the score had been 17-10, the winning team would have covered the spread. The only question now is, in Las Vegas, did the betting favor covering the spread, or not covering it? Millions of dollars rode on this game--you can bet [no pun intended] that Las Vegas made some serious phone calls to the NFL Commissioner. You can also bet that a rule will be emplaced, perhaps at the end of the season, that will cover this situation and prevent it from recurring. Instant replay, which was invoked on this play, will be tweaked even further. Referee decisions will be made even more accurately.
[Football has come a long way from a bunch of kids on Saturday out on the high school grass just playing away during the summer from dawn to dusk. Today's kids, of course, are too busy with XBOX and Playstation to do anything so absurd.][Besides, most public schools, paid for by public money, won't allow the public to play on their grounds].
By now you're wondering where I'm going with this. Well may you wonder. I shall explain.
About a week ago I went shopping for a new television set. Not that I particularly need a new one--the one in the corner of the living room still functions adequately. And it's not that I watch a lot of it. Most of the time it's on for the background noise, and because the dogs seem to enjoy some of the American sitcoms and other programs, which are directed toward their level of intelligence.* But the TV set [a Sanyo, if it matters], is a 19-incher, and I sit at my desk about 18 feet from it. I'm mumblety-mumble years old. I don't want to move the TV. So I need a larger one.
Wow! They make larger ones. Dios mio! They're enormous! And so thin! I can get a 32-inch screen that is about six inches thick. And the clarity is-is . . . well, that's what drove me to write this.
The clarity on some of these television models is realer than real. It's like Pamela Anderson's . . . never mind. It's really there! On one set I saw a kind of screensaver scene, fish in an aquarium. No fish in the Universe is that brightly colored, lemme tell you. On these screens, actors will have to trim their nose hairs a full two inches up into their noses. I mean, the detail is exquisitely [insert amazed and astonished adjective here].
How much detail do we really need?
I mean, I just wanna watch Doctor Who.
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* Actually, both Keeya and Ming are far more intelligent than that. But they like background noise. It helps them sleep through the advertisements.
Past Tuppence:
September 2008
June 2008
March 2008
December 2007
September 2007
June 2007
March 2007
December 2006
September 2006
June 2006
March 2006
December 2005
September 2005
June 2005
March 2005
December 2004
September 2004
June 2004
March 2004
December 2003
September 2003
June 2003
March 2003
December 2002
October 2002
August 2002
June 2002
April 2002
February 2002
December 2001
October 2001
August 2001
Read more from Tyree Campbell in any of the following:
The Dog at the Foot of the Bed
by Tyree Campbell
Wondrouse Web Worlds Vol. 6
Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 5
Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 4
Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 3
Sex and the Single Alien
An anthology
Nyx
A novel by Tyree Campbell
Wondrous Web Worlds Vol. 2