Happy Percival Lowell's Pluto Day!

Isn't pi exactly equal to 3 according to some old US law from the 1800's ???
Paul Schlyter, Grev Turegatan 40, SE-114 38 Stockholm, SWEDEN


Sorry - that never actually happened. Urban Legend.

There WAS a bill in Indiana back in 1897 that passed in the State
House of Representatives but not the State Senate. (I can't tell if
even that one was serious - it's not that unusual for members of the
various legislatures to pass a bill in jest, knowing that it will
quietly die in the other house.)

That could have been what Robert Heinlein had in mind when he put in a
line about Tennessee actually passing such a law in his Science
Fiction book STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND in 1961. I guess some people
thought anything Heinlein threw into a story must be true, even when
writing about a futuristic society.

And then there was a joke article in 1998 about Alabama doing that,
published under the byline "April Holiday" on 4/1/98. People stripped
off the parts that made it clear it was an April Fool's Day joke and
circulated it as fact.

http://www.snopes.com/religion/pi.asp