Pi seconds is a nanocentury
π seconds is a nanocentury
— Jon Bentley, quoting Tom Duff, Programming Pearls
No, this isn’t a mysterious and fundamental connection between circles and the solar system. Actually, it’s incorrect:
- nanocentury ~3.15576 seconds
- ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter ~3.14159
Rather, Tom Duff’s rule of thumb is a useful mnemonic. One year is roundabout 3.14×107 seconds. The accuracy of this figure is more than good enough for back of an envelope calculations. (Such calculations would be easier if we adopted a decimal time system — 100 seconds in a minute, 100 minutes in an hour, say — but time is one of the few currencies with internationally agreed denominations. I can’t see it changing, and 100 days in a year doesn’t make sense anyway.)
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