Happy Tau Day 298
Forget about Pi Day, today we celebrate something twice as good: Tau Day. For far too long, Pi has been the bride and Tau has been the bridesmaid. As Michael Hartl points out in The Tau Manifesto, "Pi is a confusing and unnatural choice for the circle constant." He is giving a talk at the California Institute of Technology based on the Manifesto, with pie served at the end. "Twice as many as you might expect," he says.
Re:Always show your work (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the worst things you can do to a student that truly understands the material is to drag them down and force them to do what they consider menial tasks.
Exactly. What the teacher should have done is give them a question that they cannot do in their heads. If they can do 67pi then how about 67e or 123*sqrt(3) etc. That does not drag them down but does teach them that, smart as they are, there are always more difficult problems out there so they should not get too cocky.