IN WHICH Ross Rheingans-Yoo, a sometimes-poet and erstwhile student of Computer Science and Math, oc­cas­ion­al­ly writes on things of int­erest.

# Reading Feed (last update: July 9)

A collection of things that I was happy I read. Views expressed by linked authors are chosen because I think they're interesting, not because I think they're correct, unless indicated otherwise.

### (6)

Blog: Marginal Revolution | China green energy projection of the day — "China’s energy companies will make up nearly half of the new coal generation expected to go online in the next decade... Keep this all in mind the next time you hear someone tout China as the new leader of the global green energy movement."

### (5)

Blog: Marginal Revolution | Cheer you up true story from Maine — "But in Maine, servers actively campaigned to overturn the results of a November referendum raising servers’ hourly wages from $3.75 in 2016 to$12 by 2024, saying it would cause customers to tip less and actually reduce their take-home

# A Meditation on π

note: This is not a volley in the $\pi-\tau$ debate, of which Vi Hart is undisputed monarch -- and right, as well -- as far as I'm concerned.

### (1)

A few number-theoretic $\pi$ facts:

• $\pi$ is provably transcendental, thus also irrational.
• $\pi$ is suspected, but not known, to be normal, a generalization of transcendence.
• $\pi$, provably, has Liouville-Roth constant (or irrationality coefficient) no greater than $7.6063$, and is suspected to have constant no greater than $2.5$. (As a consequence of its irrationality, its L-R constant is $\geq2$.)

Note, though, that each of these things is also true of literally 100% of numbers. And before you scoff at my use of the figurative 'literally', no no -- measure-theoretically, the non-(normal, transcendental, irrational, irrationality-coefficient-less-than-8) numbers make up exactly, mathematically 0% of the number line.

For the record: irrational algebraics like $\sqrt2$ are also nonterminating and nonrepeating, and it's