[TowerTalk] True North (Again?)

[Fred Hopengarten]

Subject: Re: tales from the north.....


> It is true that primitive societies use only rough approximations for
the
> known constants of mathematics.  For example, the northern tribes of
Alaska
> consider the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle to
be
> 3.  But it is not true that the value of 3 is called Eskimo pi. 
> 
> Incidentally, the survival of these tribes is dependent upon government
> assistance, which is not always forthcoming.  For example, the Canadian
> firm of Tait and Sons sold a stock of defective compasses to the
government
> at half-price and the government passed them onto the northern natives.
> Hence, the saying among these peoples:  "He who has a Tait's is lost."
 


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