IN  WHICH Ross Rheingans-Yoo—a sometime artist, economist, poet, trader, expat, EA, and programmer—writes on things of int­erest.

# Reading Feed (last update: March 17)

A collection of things that I was glad 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.

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Blog: Marginal Revolution | The rise of the temporary scientist — relevant to my interests, naturally.

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Blog: Marginal Revolution | Has the Tervuren Central African museum been decolonized? — "In a word, no. They shut the place down for five years and spent \$84 million, to redesign the displays, and what they reopened still looks and feels incredibly colonial. That’s not an architectural complaint, only that the museum cannot escape what it has been for well over a century..."

Neat: Submarine Cable Map

# 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.

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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 not clear what features of the stringwise-local decimal expansion (which seems to be the only thing $\pi$ enthusiasts focus on,