Bigger Strike Zone

[Chess Ref]

I was under the belief that pie is continuing to grow. heard a story about a supercomputer at Cal that is getting new digits. It just runs the computations all the time........

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by Chess Ref

I was under the belief that pie is continuing to grow. heard a story about a supercomputer at Cal that is getting new digits. It just runs the computations all the time........

Actually, it is an irrational number. Not trying to tempt Bluefoot into giving us a math lesson, but what this means, in effect, is that we can never know the value of pi exactly. No matter how many digits are used, it is still an approximation.

So, pi is not growing, but the number of digits that we know keep growing. Don't know if the story about the supercomputer at Cal is true or not... if it is, Cal has too much money.

[Bluefoot]

That is an excellent explanation of an irrational number! It is a number with a decimal that never ends, and never becomes a repeating sequence of digits. (most specifically, it's one that can't be represented by writing the number as A/B, where A and B are both integers)

BTW, your 126th digit past the decimal is incorrect. It should be a 7.(HA!)

Pi is "growing" at the approximate rate that an umpire's strike zone does, when he loses his patience behind the plate and depserately wants the game to end.

[CecilOne]

Originally Posted by Chess Ref

I was under the belief that pie is continuing to grow. heard a story about a supercomputer at Cal that is getting new digits. It just runs the computations all the time........

Maybe we could get it to do something useful, like comparing all our rule books, or counting the myths that are posted, or the number of times someone says HTBT.

[tcblue13]

Originally Posted by Chess Ref

I was under the belief that pie is continuing to grow. heard a story about a supercomputer at Cal that is getting new digits. It just runs the computations all the time........

Mr. Spock actually used the value of pi to the last digit to confound a super computer in the original series "Star Trek"

He should have been an umpire

[Bluefoot]

Originally Posted by tcblue13

Mr. Spock actually used the value of pi to the last digit to confound a super computer in the original series "Star Trek"

He should have been an umpire

A video clip of this has actually been used in math classes that I've been in.

BTW, who is "Captain Slog" that Kirk talks to at the begining of each episode?

I ain't no trekkie.

[Dakota]

Originally Posted by Bluefoot

I ain't no trekkie.

Talk about useless redundancy.

[IamMatt]

Hope you don't mind my chiming in, but is there some reason that officials are told to do something at clinics that contradicts their written rules?

Maybe the rule sets are different for the sanctioning bodies you are referring to and if so, I apologize for my ignorance, but if, for example, the ASA rules define the strike zone as "...that space over any part of home plate.." what is the basis for an instructor to teach something contradictory?

[IRISHMAFIA]

Originally Posted by IamMatt

Hope you don't mind my chiming in, but is there some reason that officials are told to do something at clinics that contradicts their written rules?

Maybe the rule sets are different for the sanctioning bodies you are referring to and if so, I apologize for my ignorance, but if, for example, the ASA rules define the strike zone as "...that space over any part of home plate.." what is the basis for an instructor to teach something contradictory?

I thought that was explained quite well early on.

[IamMatt]

Originally Posted by IRISHMAFIA

I thought that was explained quite well early on.

I probably should have worded my question differently. I wasn't questioning whaether there are reasons in favor of the strike zone being enlarged or altered, just the methodolgy of implementing the change by intstructing officials to do something that contradicts the rules.

The rules define a specific strike zone. If the consensus is that the strike zone prescribed in the rules is not working well or needs to be wider, wouldn't the appropriate thing be to change the rules rather than break or contradict them?

I know nobody would decide to award first base on 3 balls instead of 4 or call a batter out with 2 strikes instead of 3 because it seemed to work better or to move the game along, and I don't imagine that anyone would instruct that in a clinic.

I am just trying to understand why the approach is not to change the rule rather than circumvent it?