Dr Michael Hartl is proposing a movement in mathematical circles (no pun intended) that will mean a lot to Comitti engineers and designers or anyone with a vested interest in clock making and its inevitable concerns with radial trigonometry. Dr Hartl (an educator and former theoretical physicist) proposes the scrapping of pi in favour of a new constant symbolised by the Greek letter tau and which would be equal to 2 x pi. This measure fits more elegantly with the radian definition of circles rather than the conventional angular measure based on pi. The idea is that tau will simplify many areas of mathematics and engineering. Have a look at the BBC article for a deeper explanation of the concept: -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13906169
