this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
745 points (95.4% liked)
Memes
44924 readers
2839 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Really depends on the situation. If you have to land an aircraft on the moon, you better get the value of π right.
However when estimating the distance to another galaxy, you're not gonna fly there so you just want to know the order of magnitude: is it 10^9 or 10^15 miles away?
It may be a joke from xkcd, but I am not sure anyone in their right mind would bother using 10 instead of 3 or whatever.
https://xkcd.com/2205/
possibly relevant in the context: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2205:_Types_of_Approximation
Holy shit a site that explains xkcd jokes. You just made my whole week.
Let's not pretend none of us have ever not understood an xkcd comic.
My brother has a PhD in astrophysics and he said similar likes like pi is 10.