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That Time Indiana Tried to Change Pi · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: tuning in. It's us back from Las Vegas with stories
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: to tell. Shout out to our main man, super producer,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: mister Max Williams. Max, what I think it's the right
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and ethical thing for Nola and I to assure you
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that you missed absolutely nothing in Vegas.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I'm ben you were damn But you guys know what,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: while y'all were in Vegas, I was learning about math.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: It was probably some math that we could have put
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: to use to game those poker machines, which is definitely
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: a thing that you can do.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to figure out of them, that's right.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: No true story.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I went to this local bar in the Arts district
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: and was standing in line for the bathroom and there
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: are these two older gentlemen who were talking about gambling machines,
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: and one of them said that a friend of his
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: actually designs the machines, and that even he has no
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: way of gaming the system because the system is designed
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: to game you.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: That's true. We have an episode on stuff they don't
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: want you to know coming out called stuff casinos don't
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: want you to know. Pay attention to that. It's a
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: live show, and you'll also hear a show we did
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: about Labor Day, also live in Vegas, with some help
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: from our friends at Bow's. It was a weird time.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Max I won. I didn't win a lot of money,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: but a guy named Greg won a lot of money.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And that's a story for off air. It's it's the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: true story. It's a weird one. But to your point,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Nol one of my very good friends in my old
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: sketch comedy group, or No. One of my old improv teams,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: his day job is designing slot machines, video slot machines,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and he's in just the same situation as that stranger's friend.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: At the bar.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: It's it's very much a black box when you get
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: to that random number generation on the slots.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: I actually won big on one hit first twenty bucks
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: I put into a machine. I won one thousand dollars
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: and I still ended up two hundred dollars down overall Vegas. Baby,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: it's the price of doing business.
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  Speaker 1: Greg M. And oh I did find out Greg M
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: is a real person, Greg M. That's what we're just saying, M.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Greg m who I became for the entirety of our
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: trip there, received one hundred dollars credit from a casino
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and then walked away with about seven hundred dollars minus
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: those egregious ATM fees.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: So thanks Greg, you win, Greg wins. Greg will loses,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: but Noel had a good time. Man learned a lot
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: about the nature of the human spirit, most of which
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: I learned from the Hoover Dam video, yes, which is.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Very much propaganda that reminds me of going to the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: border of North Korea. That has nothing to do with
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: anything but today's story, courtesy of our research associate, mister
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Max Williams, is about creative problem solving, or an attempt
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  Speaker 1: to do so, thinking out of the box, saying, hey,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: if there's some math I can't quite math, why don't
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I change the rules of the game. And that is
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  Speaker 1: where our story kind of begins. Let's get into pie day.
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  Speaker 1: You guys know where nerds, fellow ridiculous historians. One of
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: our good friends, Tyler Klang, who keeps things running backstage,
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  Speaker 1: has memorized pie I kid you not to an egregious
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  Speaker 1: number of digits.
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  Speaker 3: That's a fun flex. I know it up to three
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  Speaker 3: point one four, one five nine.
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  Speaker 2: I know up to three point one four.
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  Speaker 3: I only know the one five nine because it's on
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: the research doct that I'm looking at right now.
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  Speaker 1: And every year on March fourteenth, this might come up
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: because you may run into one of the people who
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: wants to have a pie flex. And I've seen people
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: go back and it's like a weird battle rap, which
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I love, where they go back and forth naming the
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  Speaker 1: digits of pie. It's also a road trip game. If
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you are not fun an.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: So every I mean, it depends on your definition of fun,
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  Speaker 3: you'd be incredibly fixed all kinds. In math circles. You're
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: probably the bell of the ball. Pie has in fact
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: been calculated way beyond even what Tyler has memorized, up
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  Speaker 3: to fifty trillion digits, a number that is incalculable to
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: the of this particular podcaster, and that's of course beyond
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: its decimal point.
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  Speaker 2: It is a.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Transcendental number, which I had not heard that term used before.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: I always associate that with more metaphysical pursuits and meditation
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and all of that, but apparently numbers can transcend reality
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: as well, and it is also an irrational number. You
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: just can't talk to it. You know, it just insists
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: upon itself. It's so irrational.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: It's one of the most fascinating mathematical phenomenon right because PI,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: at its basis, is the ratio of the circumference of
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: a circle to its diameter. Now, most people will tell
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: you three point one, four, one, five nine is close
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  Speaker 1: enough for government work. But this strange, distinct nature of
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  Speaker 1: PI has captured the human mind for time immemorial. That's
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  Speaker 1: why every day on March fourteenth, people celebrate Pie Day.
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  Speaker 1: That's why, you know, like you said, there are a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people who want to memorize or count out
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: every everything. That's why there's an excellent film called Pie.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It's a great date movie. Just trust us, don't read
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: these spoilers.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Tie again. Early first one drilled in their head like
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: a little.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: All Stars that It probably came out in the nineties,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: like maybe ninety eight, ninety nine, something like that. But yeah,
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: it's also in really really gritty filmy black and white.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: So in that scene that you're describing the splatter, it
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: just looks like black ink. It's pretty intense. It's a
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  Speaker 3: really cool movie. It's Kabbala as well. It's there's like
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: a crossover of the math side. The main character as
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  Speaker 3: a mathematician and he encounters this sect of almost like
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: a cult of Kabbala followers who are essentially searching for
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  Speaker 3: like a sacred geometry something.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like it's almost a callback to Arthur C.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Clark's Nine Billion Names of God because they induct them.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: They've got the teflin and all that stuff. And then
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: there's of course an evil corporate conspiracy.
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  Speaker 2: It's just great.
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  Speaker 1: Ye. And here's the thing. Wild Pie is chaotic. While
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  Speaker 1: it seems that there is no predictable repetition, let alone
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  Speaker 1: an end to the digit, it is still very very
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  Speaker 1: important because we need to understand circumferences of circles. This
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: is huge for space exploration. Like NASA pointed out, engineers
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: at their organization build spacecraft that make these elliptical orbits
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and guzzle fuel from cylindrical fuel tanks and measure distance
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  Speaker 1: on circular wheels.
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  Speaker 2: All of those are round things. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Another thing that comes up in the film Pie is
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  Speaker 3: the idea of the golden ratio and a lot of
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  Speaker 3: these things that sort of appear in Native Sure, it
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  Speaker 3: would appear that Pie is in some way a secret
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  Speaker 3: of the universe.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it might be, if you believe in reality as
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: a simulation, it might be some of the code used
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  Speaker 1: to program resources.
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: So we're giving you that really quick background on pie
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  Speaker 1: as a cultural phenomenon, as a as a mathematic fascination,
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  Speaker 1: because it turns out, fellow ridiculous historians, that we are
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  Speaker 1: not alone in our fascination and with with a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of gumption and a lot of hutspa. Over in
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  Speaker 1: Indiana back in the day, there was a guy who
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  Speaker 1: thought he figured out pie.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, figured it out better than all the other science
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  Speaker 3: types that have been doing it since antiquity, including folks
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  Speaker 3: like Pythagoras, Archimedes of Syracuse, all the hits, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And this fellow in Indiana was like, no, no, no,
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  Speaker 3: I got this.
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  Speaker 2: I think we think.
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  Speaker 3: I think a change will do us good here in
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  Speaker 3: the fine state of India.
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  Speaker 2: He had help, He had some divine intervention.
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  Speaker 1: You could say, hey, wait, do you know the upcoming
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know? Episode?
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  Speaker 2: Max, I don't, but I know this episode because I
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  Speaker 2: wrote it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Max, you wrote our research brief here and I
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  Speaker 1: really enjoy some of the stuff you found about the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: history of pie. We said time immemorial. For humans, that
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  Speaker 1: means they knew about pie for about four thousand years.
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  Speaker 1: And it keeps reminding me of some of my favorite
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  Speaker 1: science fiction. Even if human civilization calculated the number of
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  Speaker 1: seconds in four thousand years and calculated pie to the
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  Speaker 1: number of seconds in four thousand years, we would still
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  Speaker 1: not have the whole number. It would there would still
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: be another digit after that, and another after that, and
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  Speaker 1: after that, and so for much of human history. Like
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned, no Archimedes, Pythagoras, They're trying to calculate to
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  Speaker 1: the best of their ability, and every single person ended
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  Speaker 1: up eventually rounding up or rounding down and saying close enough.
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  Speaker 2: Close to three.
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  Speaker 3: The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle using
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  Speaker 3: the formula of three times the square of its radius,
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  Speaker 3: which gave that value of Pie equals three. On an
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  Speaker 3: ancient Babylonian tablet circa nineteen hundred to sixteen eighty BCE,
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  Speaker 3: it shows the value of three point one two five
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  Speaker 3: for Pi, which is a bit closer to the modern
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  Speaker 3: day approximation. Another ancient text, the Wrinned Papyrus circus sixteen
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  Speaker 3: fifty BCE, shows a little bit more of a look
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  Speaker 3: into the math of ancient Egypt, which was shockingly advanced.
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  Speaker 3: The emptions were no slouches when it came to figure in.
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  Speaker 1: The pyramids might not look that impressive until you realize
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  Speaker 1: how much math went into building them.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, Ben, I watched a little bit when we got
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: back from our trip last night, just to kind of
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: mellow out Kunk on Earth, and oh and suggested it.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: And there's a great line sort of in the beginning
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: when it's just doing like a clip show, kind of
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: showing what the show is going to be, where she's
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: talking to some expert on math or I believe history,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and say, so, why are people so confused about how
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: the pyramids were built? It's obviously just big bricks shaped
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  Speaker 3: like a triangle.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did you enjoy it?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed what I saw. I did pass out, but
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: I look for to revisiting it. It's a delight.
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  Speaker 1: I will revisit it to a Fortunately, I had to
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: stay up all night, so I'm a little sleep deprived.
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  Speaker 1: But hey, pie never ends, so why should we? And
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  Speaker 1: then let's go to Archimedes just to flesh out the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: background here, folks. So Archimedes of Syracuse, not the one
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you're thinking of. He is one of the greatest mathematicians
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  Speaker 1: of the ancient world. And so he tackled this the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: way smart people always do. He looked around at precedents,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: he asked questions, and eventually he said, look, I can
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  Speaker 1: approximate the area of a circle if I use the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: existing Pythagorean theorem to find the area of two regular polygons.
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  Speaker 1: And it's like old Matroshkadal, right, there's a polygon inscribed
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  Speaker 1: within the circle, and then there's a polygon outside of
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  Speaker 1: the circle, And so he said, the actual area of
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  Speaker 1: the circle is somewhere in there. So now if I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: know how big the outside shape is and how big
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  Speaker 1: the inside shape is, I know that the circumference of
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  Speaker 1: the like the circle itself, the area of it is
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  Speaker 1: somewhere in between there.
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  Speaker 3: And shout out to Exploratorium dot edu, which is a
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: learning laboratory that you can visit in San Francisco.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: You can actually buy tickets.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Seems like a really cool place, a science museum and
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: has some really good information on their website, including a
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  Speaker 3: brief history of PI. So as you can tell, this
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  Speaker 3: stuff goes way way way back, involving some historical figures
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: who are way smarter than us, including back in ancient
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: China around four twenty nine to five oh one CE
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  Speaker 3: the mathematician Zoo Chong Shei.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Hutong she was brilliant. Is kind of the the
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Chinese Archimedes. If you ignore the timeline, he would not
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  Speaker 1: have known of Archimedes' clever method. Oh, by the way,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: don't want to miss this, folks. Archimedes his process found
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  Speaker 1: that pies between three and one seventh and three and
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  Speaker 1: ten seventy one, so he got pretty close. Not bad dude,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and I had not been says to Archimedes. You know
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a good hustle bro anyway, so our buddy shoe. He
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: calculates the value of the ratio of the circumference of
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: a circle to its diameter to be three fifty five
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: over one thirteen. And to compute this, he started with
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: the closest kind of polygon that could approximate a circle
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and still had discernible sides. And then he did hundreds
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: and hundreds of weird calculations. Weird to me at least
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of square roots carried out to nine decimal places. So
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: also good hustle shoe and then the letter. The letter
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: actually doesn't come around until the seventeen hundreds to represent
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: this concept.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and from the section that brief history of HIE article,
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  Speaker 3: I learned that you can have a polygon is just
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: a kind of catch all for a shape that has sides.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: And it refers to in this computation done by Shangxi
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: A two five hundred and seventy six gone, which is
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: a thing.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's from far enough away, it looks kind of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: like a circle, almost like pixels, like you have to
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like zoom in to kind of see the building blocks.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And now knowing all that, we are going to fast
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: forward Max, we get fast forward Q to a bit
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: more modern history. We're fast forwarding and we are making
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: this our Indiana state. Thank you, Max. Indiana calls itself
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the Crossroads of America if you've ever been. It's a
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: nice place outside of Erie. It borders Lake Michigan, and
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: you know, and Max's home state of Michigan to the north,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Ohio's on the east, Kentucky's in the south, Illinois over
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: in the west. So this place is peak Midwest. Its story,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: its modern story dates back to sixteen seventy nine when
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: according to our pals of Britannica, a guy named Renee
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Ruleboat Cavilla has traveled from Boat down the Saint Joseph
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: River and arrived at northern Indiana and colonialism happened. It
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: was French for a little bit. In seventeen sixty three,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: they gave it to England. I think his title even
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: goes a little further with us Sieur, which means lord
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: de la Salle, and that Crossroads of America, you know,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I guess is a sort of a nod to this
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: sort of exploration kind of history.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: So can I jump in here? This is something I
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: did not realize that other than Hawaii, it is the
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: smallest land massed state west of the Appalachians. That's weird.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: I did not realize that.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: It doesn't. It doesn't look like it, right.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It's not because it's not a small state.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: But that's aboutares and the caveat is the location of
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the Appalachians, right or Appalachians. So yeah, the United States
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: found out they're going they were going to have a
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: lot more land once they got past the Appellations, and
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: then did a bunch of horrible things which we're about
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: to talk about.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: They manifested a destiny that is ethically fraught. So the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: interesting thing happens on the way to England. When the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: English forces take possession of what becomes Indiana, they prohibit
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: further European settlement. However, let's remember communication lines were not
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: super strong. It was very difficult to project force across
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: an ocean at that point, so every ignored this decree.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: In seventeen seventy four, the English Parliament said, okay, we
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: are gonna annex the lands to Quebec. And then there's
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: this whole revolution, the peasant unpleasantness they call it in England,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and we call it the American Revolution. And during that time,
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody is scrambling to possess the land that
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: becomes called Indiana, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, they're all in this.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: And I don't know how deep we want to go
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: into the history, but what you need to know is
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: while all these European and colonial forces were batting the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: ball back and forth, the European settlers were moving into
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: an area with a large, thriving indigenous population, and they
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: were doing terrible stuff. People don't always want to hear
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: that but it is the truth, and you can it's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: so objectively true that you can find it in any
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: reputable history of Indiana, even just the general intrigue from
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: our friends at history dot.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Com m HM.
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  Speaker 3: And that all resulted in the well, not resulted in,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: but a big one, and we've mentioned this recently, was
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: the eighteen to eleven Battle of Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: which was won by William Henry Harrison, who was a
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: general at the time and of course would go on
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: to become the President of the United States. And the
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: name Indiana, which it's pretty easy to make this connection
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: loosely translates to land of the Indians, but as we
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: also know, Indians is not a thing, right like they
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: Columbus was looking for the Indies and he did not
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: find them.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Sign not. Have you guys heard about the Native tribe
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: suing the Washington commanders telling them they need to change
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: their name back to not not Washington football team, whichever
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: agreads was the best one of the three, but to
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: the one before that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I heard, I heard there was a lawsuit. Interesting,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: We'll have to see how that shakes out. Maybe once
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: it becomes history, we can we can tell that ridiculous story.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, it does sound like we're you know, we're
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: going in a couple of different directions here, folks, But
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: hopefully they are helpful directions, because get this, the entire
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: time all that other stuff is happening, folks have no
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: idea about HI. I mean, they have no idea. They
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: haven't solved it. They don't know how it ends, they
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: don't know if it repeats. And that continues today. Now
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and we fast forward, we meet They're in Indiana. A
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: mathematics professor Purdue University, his name Clarence Waldo, and Clarence
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Waldo in February of eighteen ninety seven, shows up at
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: the Indiana State House and he's trying to lobby for
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: his school, for Purdue University. For everybody outside of the US,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: lobbying is lobbying is the word we use for bribery.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: So when Waldo was hanging out in the state House
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: to push for those increases in school budgets, he witnessed
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: something that resonated with him. House built two forty six,
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: a measure intended to legally change the value of the
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: number Pi to three point two, and it passed its
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: third and final reading in the General Assembly's lower house,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: and he is quoted as saying the following in response
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: to that event, imagine my surprise, and I discovered that
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I was in the midst of a debate upon a
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: piece of mathematical legislation. After the vote was concluded, a
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: legislator walked over to Walder, who at the time was
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: also the president of the Indiana Academy of Science, and
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: suggested that he meet the man behind the bill, to
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: which the professor politely declined.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and said, I'm already acquainted with as many crazy
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: people as I care to know. Shout out to an
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: absolutely non crazy guy, a ripping writer Nathan Gosh writing
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: for the Indiana Capitol Chronicle, who's giving us the ins
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: and outs of this story. The question is what's going on?
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Why did this bill pop up? This is interesting to
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Waldo because doctor Waldo is a mathematics professor, and that's
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: when he learns about the crazy quote unquote crazy guy
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the legislators referring to Edwin Goodwin. Edwin Goodwin is a
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: country doctor and sort of self taught man amateur mathematician
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: living in rural area about twenty miles outside of Evansville, Indiana.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: He has been obsessed with what we just proved is
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: a nigh unsolvable problem. He always he stays up at
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: night and he's thinking, if I only use a standard
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: compass in a straightitch, can I construct a square with
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the same area as a given circle. That's like, that's
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: his Kardashians, that's his Reality TV. That's what he thinks
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: about and watches and plays with.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Right, And he wasn't the first person to come up
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: with this idea, but he did think that he found
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: a better way to approach the problem. And this is
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: from reporting in Forbes by Keona and Smith.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Quote.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: He started by trying to throw out Archimedes' formula for
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: the area of the circle and replace it with his
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: own formula, which was more complex and arguably more convoluted
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: in its writing style, which apparently was a bit problematic,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: and he used some pretty imprecise versions of the original
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: measurements in his diagram, which included pie And as a
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: result of these calculations, he came to the conclusion that
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: the area of the circle was about twenty one percent
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: larger than its actual area. So basically he just you know,
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: to your point earlier been fueled by moxie and or hutzba.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: He believed in what he was doing and aggressively pursued it.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: But what he was doing was basically bad math. He
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: had the he had the strident confidence of the objectively incorrect.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So he had this. His idea was that he can
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: approximate pie as a ratio of quote five fourths to
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: four three point two. That is not the correct way
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to round pie. Goodwin doesn't care, because he had a
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: message from on high telling him it was okay, that's right.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: In addition to being a country doc or a mathematician,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: he was also a bit of a prophet. He believed
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that he had experienced divine intervention, that God had told
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: him in March of eighteen eighty eight the true value
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of pie. So this voice from on high just said Edward,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: it's three point two, And he's like, what, who are
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you on God? What does three point two mean? It's pie?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: All right on your way.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: So it's almost like he he worked backwards kind of
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: like to reach that conclusion. Almost it would seem like
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: he allowed himself to be guided by imprecise math in
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: order to reach that calculation. And as we know, that's
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: a real bad way to do science, to seek a particular.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Result that is not what one tends to want to do.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Another just off the top example would be like,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: let's say you have an equation and you know that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: equation needs to equal ten. You have two numbers, you
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: have seven, and you have four, and so instead of
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: accepting that those numbers are true, you say, well, I'm
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: going to change that seven to a six. I'm going
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to change the problems so that it feels like I
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: got the answer. And in his defense, it does seem
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: he was sincere. It does not seem that he was
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: trying to run a grift. He really did believe a
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: divine force, probably the Christian God, had spoken to him
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and revealed this information, and armed with this, he goes
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and remember he's a doctor, so he has some juice
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: in his community. He goes to local state reps and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: one of them is a weird name Taylor. I record
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: or record probably, but I like I record to me, Sally, I.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Record it's true.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: And this is one thing that occurred to me when
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: reading up on this stuff, is like, we've seen this
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: kind of thing happen in politics about other things like
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: remember when the lawmakers. Some certain lawmakers were up in
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: arms about like furries and schools, like you know, kids
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: that like to dress up as animals.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: And they're putting litterboxes in the schools.
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: And they literally were debating this, you know, in you know,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: the House of Government, and it was just absolutely not true.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: And it just goes to show it is a good
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: thing to write your congressman, to write your your lawmaker,
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: but make sure you do it with good information and
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: in good faith, because this is a perfect example. Well,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: you know, this guy might not have been a bad
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: faith actor. He was acting on completely incorrect information and
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: it would have gone all the way likely due to
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: a lack of good information across the board. Thankfully, as
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: we talked about at the top of the episode a
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: little earlier, this true mathematician Waldo, where was he?
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Well, he was there. He was there at the right time,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: right place. Yes, can we get the name of this bill?
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's right, exactly. Yeah, So Taylor I record,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: or hopefully Taylor I record. He is persuaded by Goodwin
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: to introduce this bill, because any state rep can introduce
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a bill, and in eighteen ninety seven he goes to
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: the rest of his buddies in the halls of Indiana
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: power and introduces quote a bill for an act introducing
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a new mathematical truth. And this legislation is a real thing. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: It promises that Goodwin will allow the state of Indiana
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to publish his discovery in all its textbooks for free,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you guys, for foul thanks, and anyone else outside of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Indiana is going to have to regularly pay royalties to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Goodwin because that thing. God also said that. I imagine
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: God was also like, and every time you tell someone
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: they owe you three bocks.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: I don't think you can own a mathematical truth. I
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: don't think that's how these types of discoveries work.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Not really, you're correct, I mean, how would you stop
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: people from thinking an idea? So, as you point out, Max,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that's not anywhere close to how publishing those discoveries works,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: as you said, Noel, But that was not why lawmakers
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: were confused. Remember a lot of these guys are lawyers.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: They know that's not how royalties, copyright residuals, or anything
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: like that works. They're mainly confused because they're like, why
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: are we doing this? Why are we here? Don't we
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: have other stuff to do? And they're trying to figure
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: out how to process this bill, right, what is the
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: parliamentary procedure for something this unusual? And one guy literally says,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: make the Finance Committee do it.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: They do numbers, They do numbers, they do maths. You
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: got a wonder too, at this time in history, in
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: a state like Indiana. Do you think the fact that
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: he said it came into his head from God had
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: something to do with the support. Yeah, I'm sure you
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: have to have moved the needle a little bit.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: No, the year is twenty twenty three. There's parts in
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: this country where that would still probably work. Of course,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: many parts of this country.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Actually, Yeah, and full disclosure, one of them is our
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: fair home state of Georgia. One hund So, another guy
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: who was who was in the mix, probably studied geometry
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: at some point in his life. He joked, we should
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: send this to the Committee on Swamp lends to quote
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: find a deserved grave.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I love all the timey political speak, ay, and you
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: can all the snark is always so just drippingly delicious.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: So eventually Build two forty six did find its way
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: to I guess what would seem like an appropriate committee,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: The Committee on Education, which in its infinite wisdom approved
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: it and sent it to the General Assembly for a vote,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: and as we mentioned, it did pass. On February sixth,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: eighteen ninety seven. It was passed unanimously, sixty seven to zero.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: Those guys just wanted to get to lunch. I think
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: that's true. It just seemed like such a to them,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: like this is such a nothing, let's just move on.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: But you know, to men of science, to people of science,
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: this is a big deal. This is like a blemish
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: on the reputation of the state. They know where this
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: is going to go and how it's gonna make their
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: state and their lawmakers, their legislative body a laughing stock.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: And thankfully, as we mentioned a couple of times, Clarence Waldo,
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: our hero scientist who actual understood the calculations, was there
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: observing and happened to be in the exact right place
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: at the exact right time to keep this atrocity from
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: going through.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: Right at least, at the very least to help reverse it.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely cut it off at the past as
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: best he could. And history hinges on such small things.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: This guy was just in the room for something completely
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: different and was an ethical enough person to raise his
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: hand and pump the brakes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: He stopped the.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Bill in the Senate because he said, look, this is
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: going to be a national, international, historic embarrassment for all
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of you, and so any senators that could listen to reason,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: he would take them aside. He was privately coaching them,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: like saying, look, I know you're not a mathematician. This
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: is why this matters. And here are you know, you're
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: talking points, here's what you say, and anybody who knows
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: anything about math, they will be nodding their heads in
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: fervent agreement. At the same time, he's working against the
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: media machine because newspapers outside of Indiana had picked up
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the story. Look at these local yokels out in the Midwest,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and should this be the crossroads of America?
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And they are making fun of the legislators. They're saying
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: they're a bunch of suckers, They're a bunch of nincom
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Poops Center or in Hubble of Elkhart County tried to
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: kill the bill. He ran point on the offense and
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: he said it was utter folly. We might as well
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: try to legislate water to run up hill.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and all of this was as a result of
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: the coaching that these folks received. Again, a lot of
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: these lawmakers, they're not experts in every field. They that's
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: why they have, you know, advisors and folks that they
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: depend on to help them. And if they're getting bad information,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: then they oftentimes act on bad information. So this is
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: a good example of the system of law working more
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: or less like it's supposed to, because now there's this
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: whole counter rhetoric against what has come to pass.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad. I'm so glad professors and nerds are
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: in the world. I feel like most legislative bodies should
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: just have some on call just hanging out, you know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: if they're broke, they maybe broke grad students. Just promise
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: them lunch and then have them raise their hand if
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: something sounds off. That would save us a lot of time.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Sounds like we need to give, like, you know, our lawmakers.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: Zack Williams, research associate, Zach Williams. Yeah, yes, exactly. I'd
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: be one hundred down for Zach proof reading these bills.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I'd be down for any of us hanging out with
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: that stuff.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, even pay attention.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: If politics wasn't so dirty, then I probably would have
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: been more involved, but everybody vote.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: I guess we just say at the end, I mean,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: but the thing is, though, to the point of this
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: whole story is a lot of times there's just too
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: many things going on to keep abreast of everything and
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: also be like, you know, doing your own research and
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: your own work. So absolutely thanks to these folks that
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: pay attention to everything that is running through institutions of
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: law in this country and raising the red flag when
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: stupid stuff is about to go down.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: And to that point, you know, if we're being completely
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: objective and not romanticizing the story, the reason that bill
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: died was primarily due to Waldo's lobbying and the negative press.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as though these senators themselves were mathematic luminaries.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: There's something that was later reported by the Indianapolis Journal.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: They say, quote all of the senators who spoke on
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: the bill admitted that they were ignorant of the merits
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: of the proposition. That's not a ding on them, because
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: if you are a senator, if you're a state rep
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: you are constantly inundated with things. You have entire teams,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: small armies, cadres of people who are experts. Hopefully if
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: you're doing it right, they are experts on something and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: not corporate shills.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: Honestly, it's a positive that these folks would even admit
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: that they didn't know what they didn't know and that
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: they sought advice from the right people, because, as we know,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: a lot of politicians just kind of bs their way
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: through stuff and act like they know exactly what they're
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: talking about and are.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: Much the worse for it.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: So this is a pretty rare thing for lawmakers to do,
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: to say, well, we didn't really know, and now we know,
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: and we're basically sorry.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's a great point, and so let's send
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the main message there. Thank you to the conscientious people
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: who are able to stand up and say, hey, let's
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: take another look at this. No one in this story
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: is a bad guy. You know, Goodwin again, he was
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: a good faith actor.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: He was sincere.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: But sincerity because we believe something to be true does
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: not make it objectively true. Anyway. That's the crazy story
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that leads us to Pie Day, which is so much fun.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: There's so many different ways to celebrate Pie Day, and
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: there are so many other weird facts about Indiana.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also funny, Like I mean, when I was
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: a kid. I first heard about Pie Day in like
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: middle school, and it involves also eating pie which are
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: circular confections and delicious.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. But I mean I think one of my
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: favorite things about this is, uh, as you guys mentioned,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: we're trying to do all the states, I have this
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: neurotic thing set up to keep draving all.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, thank you, and take that dud I'm getting. Actually,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: souf John Stevens is recovering from something pretty serious right now.
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: So yeah, the immune condition. Yeah, he's got a new
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: record coming out that sounds amazing. When I say take
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: that suit, I mean, take the advice of your doctors.
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: You'll get through it. Man, You're awesome.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so I've been going through so when finding
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: these stories, I just kind of google a lot of things.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: I read a lot of like lists of stuff, and
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I found some other weird things about Indiana. They have
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: a town called Santa Claus, Indiana. It's a themed town
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: and they get half a million letters to Santa every year.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is through the border of Kentucky. I think
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: it's because a lot of times kids will just put
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Santa Claus on the envelope.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: That sounds about right. They produced twenty percent of the
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: country's popcorn.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Check out our stuff They Don't want you to Know.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Episode on corn.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: Wait is Oraville Reddenbacher from this part of the World's
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: from Miami.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: He was big in the drug game.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: What that's not true. They have had six vice presidents
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: in American history. We've also had two more three more
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: vice presidents than actual presidents. I don't know if you
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: guys knew that.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I did not, And I also did not know that
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: is illegal for a liquor store in Indiana to sell
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: milk or soft drinks. And I've got to be honest,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: being kind of a square goody goodye for like into
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: my adult life, I thought package stores sold boxes.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we all had that, had that moment
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: at some point. Yeah, but I was like in college,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, I mean I'm gonna tell you that
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: that one really interests me. I'm thinking trying to see
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: if there's enough of a story there to do like
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: a Blue Loss Part two, because I would love to
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: do that kind of seems like because it's a weird one.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: It's like I can't buy a soda and a bottle
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: of liquor.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: At the same time, I've got a collection of some
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of those as well that it's crazy how many are
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: still around, even if they're not strictly enforced. But yes,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Blue Laws Part two folks too did We've got some
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: more crazy stuff on the way. We're going to explore
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the life and times of Aaron Burr. We're gonna have
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: a bit of a bit of a toilet or sanitation week.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Tune in for that. Check out our Vegas episode on
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Labor Day if you haven't yet, And to go ahead
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and advertise it, probably the most biased episode we ever
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: do is going to be about the Hoover Dam, because
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so taken with it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I was as well.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: It is a without sending to propagandistic, a modern marvel
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: of engineering, and probably some pie went into it, not
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: the confection, but the math.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. So thank you to thank you to who I'm
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: calling Hoover Matt, our wonderful historian when we explored the
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Hoover Dam. Thanks as always to our super producer and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: research associate for this episode, mister Max Williams. Who else
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: and who else?
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Oh, Christopher Osio. It is here in spirit Eve's Jeff
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: co All the hits. Alex Williams composed our theme, and
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: of course Ben you.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: And also with you and thanks to Greg and oh yeah.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: I like Greg, good guy, great gambler. We'll see you
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: next time, folks.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.