pi-2
Original: pi-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman with blond hair: Why do you think pi appears in all these weird equations that have nothing to do with circles?
Woman with dark curly hair: Does it?
Panel 2:
Woman with blond hair: Think of it like this: Suppose in ancient Babylon, instead of getting weird about geometry they got weird about infinite series.
Panel 3:
Woman with blond hair: They do the series 1/1 - 1/2 + 1/3... and they find it's pi/2. Then they do the one that goes 1 - 1/3 + 1/5... and they find it's pi/4.
Panel 4:
Woman with blond hair: They keep fussing around and keep finding all these different series that all seem to share a factor in common. It's not a nice whole number -- it's somewhere between 3 and 4, and it keeps popping up.
Panel 5:
Woman with blond hair: Eventually they work the number out to many digits, and then some dorkmad mathematician comes along and proves that the "infinite series factor" is also a fundamental aspect of circles.
Panel 6 (a tiny figure standing atop a mountain peak):
Figure on mountaintop: And then everyone's like "what?! What is it doing in a CIRCLE?!"
Panel 7:
Woman with blond hair: That's weird. I guess I think of constants as being about SOMETHING then popping up elsewhere mysteriously. But actually, they're just... whatever it is they are.
Panel 8:
Woman with blond hair: God mathematics is spooky.
Panel 9:
Woman with dark curly hair: I believe God is lazy and just picked half a dozen irrationals to recycle over and over.
Votey:
A speech bubble coming from a slumped figure resting its head on its arm: Everyone thinks of God as a physicist, but then how come pi isn't exactly three?
Woman with blond hair: Why do you think pi appears in all these weird equations that have nothing to do with circles?
Woman with dark curly hair: Does it?
Panel 2:
Woman with blond hair: Think of it like this: Suppose in ancient Babylon, instead of getting weird about geometry they got weird about infinite series.
Panel 3:
Woman with blond hair: They do the series 1/1 - 1/2 + 1/3... and they find it's pi/2. Then they do the one that goes 1 - 1/3 + 1/5... and they find it's pi/4.
Panel 4:
Woman with blond hair: They keep fussing around and keep finding all these different series that all seem to share a factor in common. It's not a nice whole number -- it's somewhere between 3 and 4, and it keeps popping up.
Panel 5:
Woman with blond hair: Eventually they work the number out to many digits, and then some dorkmad mathematician comes along and proves that the "infinite series factor" is also a fundamental aspect of circles.
Panel 6 (a tiny figure standing atop a mountain peak):
Figure on mountaintop: And then everyone's like "what?! What is it doing in a CIRCLE?!"
Panel 7:
Woman with blond hair: That's weird. I guess I think of constants as being about SOMETHING then popping up elsewhere mysteriously. But actually, they're just... whatever it is they are.
Panel 8:
Woman with blond hair: God mathematics is spooky.
Panel 9:
Woman with dark curly hair: I believe God is lazy and just picked half a dozen irrationals to recycle over and over.
Votey:
A speech bubble coming from a slumped figure resting its head on its arm: Everyone thinks of God as a physicist, but then how come pi isn't exactly three?
Alt text
A long vertical SMBC comic. Two women talk. The blond woman muses about why pi shows up in equations that have nothing to do with circles. She offers a thought experiment: imagine ancient Babylonians got obsessed with infinite series instead of geometry. They keep computing series (1/1 - 1/2 + 1/3... = pi/2; 1 - 1/3 + 1/5... = pi/4) and notice they all share a recurring factor between 3 and 4. Eventually a mathematician proves this "infinite series factor" is also fundamental to circles, and (shown by a tiny figure shouting from a mountaintop) everyone freaks out: "What is it doing in a CIRCLE?!" The blond woman reflects that constants feel like they're "about" something then mysteriously reappear, but really they just are what they are -- "God mathematics is spooky." The dark-haired woman replies: "I believe God is lazy and just picked half a dozen irrationals to recycle over and over." Votey: a slumped figure resting its head on its arm says, "Everyone thinks of God as a physicist, but then how come pi isn't exactly three?"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.