Talk:Tau (disambiguation)

Tau as the mathematical constant 2 Pi

Many people have fought over weather or not this meaning of Tau should be included in the disambiguation page. I decided that utilizing the talk page would serve as a more effective means of discourse than just undoing each-others edits. The purpose of a disambiguation page is to separate the many distinct meanings which one word(as a group of letters, not the concept which it represents) can have. In certain cases however it may not be useful to include all of these meanings on the disambiguation page. In this case however I think it can be clearly argued that the mathematical concept is clearly deserving of a space on the page. To address the most recent argument I think that one could argue that the mathematical concept has a separate meaning from the letter which represents it. This is the same reason that Pi the letter and Pi the constant have separate pages. At the end of the day it is more helpful than hurtful to include this definition on the disambiguation page because that is what many if not most of the wikipedia users will be using the page for. Krimin killr21 (talk) 00:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The letter tau is used for many things in mathematics, almost all of them more important, widely known and taught than the alternate circle constant that is unused in mainstream maths. So if Tau (2π) is added then all of them should be. And why just mathematics ? Add all the other uses of the letter to this page, in case people are looking for those.

Except that would make this page far too long. So there are two disambiguating pages, this one and Tau. That is linked prominently at the top of this one. Have a look at it and see how adding all its entries to this one would make this one far too long. And if they don't all belong here then one obscure use doesn't, and Tau (2π) is very obscure. As with all Greek letters it has many uses in mathematics, all other of them being much more common as they're part of mainstream mathematics.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

This is the first time I have heard of Tau being used as 2pi (or any letter for 2pi). It is extremely rare, and only seems to be used by a few authors.Martin451 (talk) 00:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

It is a fairly common constant although certaintly not as common as Pi. Some examples of its use are: The video by the prominent maths YouTuber ViHart which curentley stands at 1,256,764 views and is entitled "Pi is (still) wrong" and the video by the University of Nottingham entitled "Tau replaces Pi."

The first paragraph of the first rebuttal would suggest that the content on this disambiguation page is chosen at random. Unless someone can provide a discriminating factor between this page and the Tau letter page I find the argument to be fallacious. Krimin killr21 (talk) 01:19, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that this disambiguation page is about the three-letter name "tau" and the tau article lists uses of the symbol "τ". -- Dr Greg  talk  02:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay I guess you're right. That's a rather confusing way of orginizing it but I guess it makes sense. Thanks for the discussion in any case. Krimin killr21 (talk) 03:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)