As mathematics educators, what do you think of pi vs tau

[james_blue]

I have heard from some education students that they think using tau (where tau = 2*pi ) when teaching students mathematics in early grades and high school is much better pedagogically. I am personally not convinced.

I can see how it might be better for things like teaching radians, since you can simply say the fraction of tau is the same as the fraction of the arc traversed. tau/4 is 90 degrees, a quarter of the full 360, tau/2 is 180 degrees, and so on. I can see the benefit, but it really doesn't seem that much hard to just multiply those by 2 to get the coefficient on pi when working with radians.

On the other hand, at some point they are going to start using pi. Sure, 2pi shows up all over the place in mathematical formulas, so in those places tau might look nicer, but really, pi shows up by itself as well. Use tau, and suddenly the area of the circle is (tau/2)*r^2 instead of just pi r^2. So it doesn't seem that much better. Moreover, when they get to higher levels, people are still going to use pi, so they are going to have to learn it eventually anyway.

What do you all think? Any agree? Disagree?

 

[sevvy]

To be honest, I've never even heard of "tau" until today. I've always been going with pi and it's traditionally always been pi. Before I even read your second paragraph, I was already thinking the same thing. Area of the circle and its circumference using tau? No thank you. Think of Euler's formula as well when the child goes into higher grades. e^i(tau/2) would just taint the beauty of that formula. You're absolutely right that they will have to learn pi eventually; it's not like we can make all the current mathematics scholars convert to "tau"ism.