Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday February 14 2017, @03:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the getting-the-facts-straight dept.

It is the 120th anniversary of the passing of a bill by the House of Congress of Indiana to change the value of pi to 3.2! [Errors in the original are copied here verbatim. -Ed]

Weird as it sounds, in effect the House voted 67-0 on H.B. 246 "Introducing a new mathematical truth" on February 5th, 1897 and referred to the Senate of Indiana.

On February 2, 1897 Representative S. E. Nicholson, of Howard County, chairman of the Committee on Education, reported to the House:

"Your Committee on Education, to which was referred House Bill No. 246, entitled a bill for an act entitled an act introducing a new mathematical truth, has had same under consideration, and begs leave to report the same back to the House with the recommendation that said bill do pass."

The bill was duly passed to the Senate on February 10th and read on the 11th, then referred to the Temperance Committee. On February 12 Senator Harry S. New, of Marion County, Chairman of the Committee on Temperance made the following report to the Senate:

"Your Committee on Temperance, to which was referred House Bill No. 246, introduced by Mr. Record, has had the same under consideration. and begs leave to report the same back to the Senate with the recommendation that said bill do pass."

On the afternoon of February 12 "Senator Bozeman called up House Bill No. 246. The bill was read a second time by title. Senator Hogate moved to amend the bill by striking out the enacting clause. The motion was lost. Senator Hubbell moved to postpone the further consideration of this bill indefinitely. Which motion prevailed."

The bill was never voted on, it was simply postponed following ridicule from the press. "Senator Hubbell characterized the bill as utter folly. The Senate might as well try to legislate water to run up hill as to establish mathematical truth by law. Leading papers all over the country, he said, were ridiculing the Indiana Legislature. It was outrageous that the State of Indiana should pay $250 a day to have time wasted on such frivolous matters."

A very interesting story by Will E. Edington then at DePauw University, published by the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. Sorry PDF only.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Grishnakh on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:15PM

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday February 14 2017, @05:15PM (#467001)

    All this stuff you cite is wrong. True Republicans don't believe any of your "facts". They have alternative facts instead which show that evolution is wrong, the climate isn't changing, science is the work of the Devil, and eliminating sex education keeps kids from having sex.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Funny=1, Touché=1, Total=2
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 2, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 15 2017, @02:53AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday February 15 2017, @02:53AM (#467199) Journal

    I do think that "alternative fact" meme has been spun out into absurdity by people on a tear. When they said it originally, I understood it to mean "other facts that tell a different story than what your narrative is pushing." As in, if there are 10 studies on the effect of sugar on human health, and 5 of them say sugar is harmful, and 5 of them say sugar is innocuous, you could easily call the findings of one side or the other, "alternative facts" to the other. That seems legitimate to me. After all, they say, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" for a reason.

    And the context for that "alternative fact" comment was the attendance at the inauguration, wasn't it? Trump was going from subway ridership, I believe, and the media was basing it on a photograph taken from the air. So one set of data was saying one thing, and the photo was saying another. Ahh, but what time was that photo taken, 4 hours before the thing was set to take place? Or was it during the oath? It is possible that the mainstream media outlets, that were on the warpath to block Trump's election to the Presidency, did something like that to de-legitimize his term from its very outset. It wouldn't be the first time the media pulled dirty tricks like that. I remember well when working on the Howard Dean campaign how a directional media mike caught Dean's roar from the stage after the Iowa caucus, when people who were actually in the room at the time couldn't really hear it over the noise of the crowd, yet the major media outlets played that selected clip over and over and over to kill Dean's insurgent campaign and clear the way for Kerry's establishment campaign.

    One thing we ought to have learned by now is that we ought to toss the myth of media objectivity and "truth" on the dustheap of history. That might once have been true in the time of Edward R. Murrow, (I don't know--before my time) but it is not now. All they do now is push a narrative that advances an agenda that suits the Masters of the Universe (or, as Azuma calls them, the "lizard people").

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday February 16 2017, @03:19PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday February 16 2017, @03:19PM (#467818) Journal

      Alternate Facts is a meme that is here to stay. And an appropriate one.

      You can have your own opinions. But you don't get your own facts. The sun rises in the East, not in the West. And not somewhere in between. It can be debated whether this good or bad. It can even be debated whether congress should attempt to change where the sun rises. But the fact remains no matter what circus show happens on the floor of congress.

      It set the tone perfectly for the new administration to make its first official press briefing be an easily disproven lie about the utterly insignificant issue of crowd size. As the last few weeks have shown, this really was the perfect introduction to how the new administration works and what they consider important. The meme Alternate Facts is an ideal description to enshrine this bit of stupidity for all time.

      https://postimg.org/image/w0b24zott/ [postimg.org]

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.