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The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most notorious attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat. Despite its name, the main result claimed by the bill is a method to square the circle, rather than to establish a certain value for the mathematical constant , the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. However, the bill does imply various incorrect values of , such as 3.2. The bill never became law, due to the intervention of Professor C. A. Waldo of Purdue University, who happened to be present in the legislature on the day it went up for a vote. The impossibility of squaring the circle using only compass and straightedge constructions, suspected since ancient times, was rigorously proven in 1882 by Ferdinand von Lindemann. Better approximations of than those implied by the bill have been known since ancient times. == Legislative history == In 1894, Indiana physician and amateur mathematician Edward J. Goodwin (ca. 1825–1902〔, citing an obituary〕) believed that he had discovered a correct way of squaring the circle.〔Edward J. Goodwin (July 1894) "Quadrature of the circle," ''American Mathematical Monthly'', 1(7): 246–248. * See: (Purdue Agricultural Economics ). * Reprinted in: Lennart Berggren, Jonathan Borwein, and Peter Borwein, ''Pi: A Source Book'', 3rd ed. (New York, New York: Springer-Verlag, 2004), (page 230. ) * See also: Edward J. Goodwin (1895) "(A) The trisection of an angle; (B) Duplication of the cube," ''American Mathematical Monthly'', 2: 337.〕 He proposed a bill to Indiana Representative Taylor I. Record, which Record introduced in the House under the long title ''"A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the Legislature of 1897"''. The text of the bill consists of a series of mathematical claims (detailed below), followed by a recitation of Goodwin's previous accomplishments: Goodwin's "solutions" were indeed published in the ''American Mathematical Monthly'', though with a disclaimer of 'published by request of the author'.〔("Clearing the Misunderstanding Re My April Fool's `Joke'" ), math.rutgers.edu.〕 Upon its introduction in the Indiana House of Representatives, the bill's language and topic occasioned confusion among the membership; a member from Bloomington proposed that it be referred to the Finance Committee, but the Speaker accepted another member's recommendation to refer the bill to the Committee on Swamplands, where the bill could "find a deserved grave".〔Hallerburg, Arthur E. "House Bill No. 246 Revisited". ''Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science'' 84 (1974): 374–399.〕 It was transferred to the Committee on Education, which reported favorably;〔(Indiana pi story ) at a Purdue server〕 following a motion to suspend the rules, the bill passed on February 6,〔 without a dissenting vote.〔 The news of the bill occasioned an alarmed response from ''Der Tägliche Telegraph'', a German-language newspaper in Indianapolis, which viewed the event with significantly less favor than its English-speaking competitors.〔 As this debate concluded, Purdue University Professor C. A. Waldo arrived in Indianapolis to secure the annual appropriation for the Indiana Academy of Science. An assemblyman handed him the bill, offering to introduce him to the genius who wrote it. He declined, saying that he already met as many crazy people as he cared to.〔 When it reached the Indiana Senate, the bill was not treated so kindly, for Waldo had coached the senators previously. The committee to which it had been assigned reported it unfavorably, and the Senate tabled it on February 12;〔 it was nearly passed, but opinion changed when one senator observed that the General Assembly lacked the power to define mathematical truth.〔 Influencing some of the senators was a report that major newspapers, such as the ''Chicago Tribune'', had begun to ridicule the situation.〔 According to the ''Indianapolis News'' article of February 13: ...the bill was brought up and made fun of. The Senators made bad puns about it, ridiculed it and laughed over it. The fun lasted half an hour. Senator Hubbell said that it was not meet for the Senate, which was costing the State $250 a day, to waste its time in such frivolity. He said that in reading the leading newspapers of Chicago and the East, he found that the Indiana State Legislature had laid itself open to ridicule by the action already taken on the bill. He thought consideration of such a proposition was not dignified or worthy of the Senate. He moved the indefinite postponement of the bill, and the motion carried.〔http://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/Localgov/Second%20Level%20pages/Indiana_Pi_Story.htm〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Indiana Pi Bill」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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