An experimental physicist should know as far as I know meanwhile a real (theoretical) physicist would probably not even touch numbers that have those scary decimals.
For me, it was this video. It came out shortly after I graduated high school, and though I was pretty good at maths, I struggled to really conceptualise the fundamental intuition behind trigonometric functions and the (polar) complex plane. Instead, I was relying on brute memorisation of the unit triangles. Learning about tau and how it relates just instantly caused everything to click with me.
What’s the significance of that number? It’s less than 0.1 away from tau, but somehow I doubt that’s it…
I assumed the number is not significant, figure it’s just supposed to mock the idea that physicists don’t know what tolerances are.
An experimental physicist should know as far as I know meanwhile a real (theoretical) physicist would probably not even touch numbers that have those scary decimals.
I can’t be arsed to check but I think it’s 2 pi which is useful when dealing with sine waves.
2 pi is tau, which is what I said it’s less than 0.1 away from, but still not equal to.
Reminds me of: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1292:_Pi_vs._Tau
And: https://www.tauday.com/tau-manifesto
For me, it was this video. It came out shortly after I graduated high school, and though I was pretty good at maths, I struggled to really conceptualise the fundamental intuition behind trigonometric functions and the (polar) complex plane. Instead, I was relying on brute memorisation of the unit triangles. Learning about tau and how it relates just instantly caused everything to click with me.
That’s a fantastic video. I follow Numberphile but never saw this one, thanks for sharing.