1. Introduction: That Time of the Year Again
2. Tau Day and Summer School
3. Ingenuity with Tau Day Pies
4. A Rapoport Math Problem
5. Tau Day Links
6. Calculating the Cosmos Chapter 6: The Planet that Swallowed its Children
7. More Tau Day Music
8. The Sweet Spot
9. The Arabic Lute
10. Conclusion: Traditionalists, Quadratics, and Tau
Introduction: That Time of the Year Again
Hmm, today's date is June 28th. And now I hear the sound of all of my readers double-checking the date....
You guessed it -- another Tau Day is upon us. This is what I wrote last year about tau:
But what exactly is this constant "tau," anyway? It is not defined in the U of Chicago text -- if it were, it would have appeared in Section 8-8, as follows:
Definition:
tau = C/r, where C is the circumference and r the radius of a circle.
Now the text tells us that C = 2pi * r, so that C/r = 2pi. Therefore, we conclude that tau = 2pi. The decimal value of this constant is approximately 6.283185307..., or 6.28 to two decimal places. Thus the day 6/28, or June 28th, is Tau Day.
It was about fifteen or twenty years ago when I first read about Pi Day, and one old site (which I believe no longer exists) suggested a few alternate Pi Days, including Pi Approximation Day, July 22nd. One day that this page mentioned was Two Pi Day, or June 28th. But this page did not suggest giving the number 2pi the name tau or any another special name.
Now about nine years ago -- on another Pi Day, March 14th -- I decided to search Google for some Pi Day webpages. But one of the search results was strange -- this webpage referred to a "half tau day":
http://halftauday.com/
"The true circle constant is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its radius, not to its diameter. This number, called
The author of this link is Michael Hartl. Here's a link to his 2020 "State of the Tau" address:
https://tauday.com/state-of-the-tau
According to this link, Hartl and his friends translated his Tau Manifesto this year into Italian, Russian, and Chinese. He also mentions some computer languages where a tau constant has been built in (but unfortunately, none of those languages are Java).
Oh, I notice that Hartl also has a "parable" where he compares using pi (instead of tau) to counting your age in "thines" (half-years, instead of years). Even though "thines" are weird, notice that "thine" is an Anglish word (in Old English it means "yours" -- Hartl chose it because "year" sounds like "ye are") that can be used to replace "semester" (the half-year of the school year).
Oh, by the way, here's one argument in favor of tau that I've rarely seen addressed by tauists -- that is, advocates of tau. It's pointed out that there's one formula in which pi shines:
A = pi r^2
This formula would be less elegant if it were written using tau:
A = (1/2) tau r^2
Tauists often respond by saying, "well, the 1/2 reminds us of the proof of the area formula" (for example, using the area of triangles) or "the 1/2 reminds us of other quadratic forms."
But actually there's a much stronger argument in favor of tau. The formula for the area of a sector of central angle theta is:
A = (1/2) theta r^2
Oh, so this formula contains a 1/2 no matter what! The full circle area is given when theta = tau. (I see that this formula actually is buried in the Tau Manifesto, but still the other arguments appear first in the Manifesto.)
This is my annual Tau Day post. So what exactly does this mean for our summer projects?
- I'm reblogging Stewart Chapter 6 (first summarized in my November 15th post) today. That's why I posted Chapter 7 the day before yesterday -- I was saving the reblogged Chapter 6 post for today's Tau Day post, which is just one huge reblog anyway. And besides -- tau rounded to the nearest whole number is 6, so let me do Chapter 6 today.)
- There is no Shapelore today. That can wait until my next post. The upcoming Lesson 14-3 is a big one because it's where we finally see our first trig ratio -- tangent. (If Geometry taught trig using radians, then it would be related to tau and Tau Day. But while it's worth considering, it has nothing to do with our Shapelore project, which is only about vocabulary.)
- There is no Java today. While the need for me to learn Java is still urgent, I feel that I can take this one post off from Java coding.
- Our music project this post is on Weeks 13-14 at the old charter school. This was the transition between the end of the first trimester and the start of the second tri. Between my car breaking down and the minimum Parent Conference days, I sang only two songs ("Benchmark Tests" and Fraction Fever"), both of which are repeats. Thus there is no song for me to post anyway -- and so instead, I'll post only Tau Day music today, as I usually do.
You might ask, why did I post at all two days ago, rather than just wait to post Chapter 6 today? Well, didn't want to lose a posting day, whether for the projects I'm not doing today (Shapelore, Java, music from Weeks 11-12) or for a Stewart chapter (in order to reach the end by the first day of school).
So that was my Tau Day Eve Eve (or Tau Day Adam) post two days ago. This is my Tau Day post.
So that was my Tau Day Eve Eve (or Tau Day Adam) post two days ago. This is my Tau Day post.
Tau Day and Summer School
In past years, I've often pointed out that both Tau Day and Pi Approximation Day can be used as alternatives to Pi Day for summer school classes.
Last year, I wrote about what a Tau Day party would look like at summer school. Of course, this year is awkward due to the coronavirus. Most schools that are bothering to have summer school this year are holding it online -- and the few that are holding face-to-face instruction will likely discourage handing out party food that involves a lot of touching. (Indeed, I wonder whether teachers will be allowed to have food parties even by next Pi Day.)
I was considering just cutting this part out of today's post. But I decided to keep this part anyway, just to remember the good times when we had classroom parties.
Different districts have different schedules, so let's assume that this is a district with summer school on Fridays. The idea I had for my own classes was that Fridays -- during the time left over if the students finished early -- would become somewhat relaxed. (Indeed, my policy on cell phones would have been that they're only allowed on Fridays after the test is complete.)
When many of the students have completed the test, music break would begin. On instruction days, the song I'd sing would be based on that day's lesson. But on Fridays after the test, I could sing a song that's more fun instead.
On Tau Day Adam, I would have played Vi Hart's Tau Day tune, "Song About a Circle Constant." These songs are fun to sing after a long, hard test -- and I could even generate a discussion about why we'd give 2pi a special name like tau. And in a summer Algebra I class, these songs about squares and circles can serve as a preview to the Geometry that they'll hopefully take in the fall (provided they pass the summer class, of course).
I can keep up the tau = 2pi idea and let the food prize be pie. Recall that back on Pi Day Eve, I purchased three full-sized pies (and two pizzas) for two classes. Notice that pi can be rounded down to 3.
So let's round tau down to six and buy personal pies for the top six students (in each of the two periods that summer teachers typically have). Actually, we could round tau up to seven, and then give the seventh pie to the most improved student -- that is, the student whose score rises the most from the first unit test (from last Thursday) to the second unit test.
This is actually something I regret not doing in my old middle school class at the charter school -- I awarded four Red Vines to the students who earned A's on my tests, but gave nothing to the most improved student. I can't help but think back to the day when the "special scholar" (from my Phi Approximation Day post) earned her first C on a test. I gave her one piece of candy that day anyway, but under this plan, the most improved student would have earned (almost) as much candy as the ones who got A's. Perhaps this would have helped me establish better rapport with her. Instead, she felt that she wasn't good enough unless she earned A's -- and then proceeded to cheat to get those A's.
Instead of pies, I could give out cupcakes instead -- just like the cupcakes mentioned in Michael Hartl's State of the Tau address last year. [2020 update: Either individual pies or individually wrapped cupcakes might be suitable for a class party in the coronavirus era.]
By the way, since I didn't actually teach any summer school, what did I really eat today? Well, I ate at Tau-co Bell, of course. I probably should have ordered some "tau-cos," but instead I tried the Nachos Bell Grande Party Platter (which is different from last summer's special). According to the advertisement, this platter contains two boxes of nachos -- just as tau is two times pi.
(Today I also ate a personal 7-Eleven lemon pie to celebrate the date.)
Ingenuity with Tau Day Pies
Two years ago, I gave an example of a Tau Day pie distribution from an actual summer school class in one of my districts -- a class that met and took a test on Tau Day that year. (Don't worry about what class this is -- this is given only as an example of pie distribution.)
Score # of Students
92 1
88 1
84 1
80 2
76 3
72 5
Well, that's actually 13 students -- so only one pie is left. (Most likely, it would have depended on whether it's first or second period in which the 72's are scored.)
Of course, this is a summer class, so it's expected that most of the scores are low. Only one student earns an A on the test. His overall grade is also the highest at 84% -- a middling B.
As for the pies awarded to students whose grades improved the most, I must admit that most scores dropped from last week's to this week's test. I suppose this is expected -- even as a student teacher, I noticed that graphing linear functions (Chapter 4 of Glencoe) is always more difficult that just solving linear equations (Chapter 2).
Actually, the student who earned 92% is tied for the most improved student -- on last week's test, his score was only 76%. (The student he's tied with improved from 60% to 76%, so both have an increase of 16 points.) Depending on which period the students are in (including the 13th student who earned a 72%), the 14th and final pie would go to either the student who improved from 60% to 68%, or the one who maintained a score of 60%. (Due to the difficulty of the second test, even maintaining the grade counts as a major accomplishment.)
Well, that's how the grades in the actual class went. In many ways, it's better to award food based on the number of pies I brought as opposed to saying in advance, "Everyone with an A or B gets a pie!" (which might result in my having too few or too many pies). You might argue that this is sort of like grading on a curve (except that the letter grades don't change based on how much food I bring).
A Rapoport Math Problem
The Geometry drought continues -- there's still no sign of any Geometry on the Rapoport calendar.
Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math 2020, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
(8 nCr 4) / ((5 nCr 3)/(4 nCr 3))
I still remember 8 nCr 4 from two weeks ago -- it's 70. We can easily write out Pascal's triangle far enough to get 5 nCr 3 = 10 and 4 nCr 3 = 4.
So we get:
70 / (5/2)
= 140/5
= 28
Therefore the desired answer is 28 -- and of course, today's date is the 28th, Tau Day.
Tau Day Links
Here are this year's Tau Day links:
1. Vi Hart:
Naturally, we begin with the three Vi Hart videos that we just discussed above.
By the way, since one of my summer projects is to post song lyrics, I ought to post the lyrics for Vi Hart's Tau Day song:
A SONG ABOUT A CIRCLE CONSTANT by Vi Hart
First Verse:
When you want to make a circle, how is it done?
Well, you probably will start with the radius 1.
Then use a compass or a string, and a paper or the ground.
And if the radius is 1, how far did you go around?
It's tau, 6.28.
Yeah, it's tau, 6.28318530717958.
Second Verse:
If you pick a certain distance, and you pick a certain spot,
And you put the two together, then what have you got?
It makes a very special shape, and now you are the inventor,
If you take all the points a certain distance from your center.
And you've got a great collection, and it is a great invention.
And it makes a lovely circle, well depending on dimension.
Because it's 1, 2, 3, then there's 4 and even more.
But for a circle, how much circle's there if you take the distance and compare?
It's tau, 6.28.
Yeah, it's tau, 6.28318530717958647692528.
Third Verse:
I know what you are thinking, what about that other guy?
The one that's sometimes pronounced "pee," and it's sometimes pronounced "pie"?
I mean, it's fine if you are building, but does not belong in math.
All the equations make more sense when you use "taw" or you use "taff."
Well, you get the same answers no matter which way.
We get further from truth when we obscure what we say.
You know that math makes sense when it's beautiful and pure.
So please don't make it ugly with your bad notation and awful curriculum.
Use tau, 6.28.
Yeah, use tau, 6.283185307179586476925286766559005768394338798750211.
By the way, in the original video, Vi Hart sings the words "awful curriculum" and writes the phrases "Alternate Interior Angle Equality Theorem!" and "Reflexive Property of Congruence" as examples of an awful curriculum. This sounds like something that can be fixed in a Shapelore class. (Wow, I keep bringing up Java and Shapelore in today's Tau Day post!)
In Shapelore, we can change AIA to "Otherside Inside Angle Worthlink Provedsaying," and the reflexive property to "Self Law of Sizeshapesameness." If Vi Hart's complaint is that the old names are too long (that is, with too many words), then unfortunately the new names are just as long. My idea is just to replace old words with new words that students understand, such as otherside for "alternate" and self for "reflexive."
2. TAU: Pi Day Protest
In past years, I've posted another version of this video where these same students are blowing up a pie for Tau Day. But that video is no longer on YouTube, so I'm posting the old version instead. (And yes, I know that in this past month there have been more important things to protest than pi vs. tau.)
3. Bri the Math Guy:
This is a new video for this year. It also discusses the tau vs. pi debate.
4. Numberphile:
His Tau vs. Pi Smackdown is a classic, and so I post this one every year.
5.Michael Blake:
This is a perennial favorite. Blake uses a rest to represent 0. Like Vi Hart, he ends on the digit 1, but this is ten extra digits past Hart's final 11.
6. SciShow
This video explains some more uses for tau. Michael Hartl mentions it in this year's "State of the Tau" address, linked above.
7. The Coding Train:
Here Dan uses geometric probability to approximate the values of pi and tau. Here's a simple program that does the same on Mocha:
http://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/
10 A=0:B=0
20 B=B+1
30 X=RND(0)
40 Y=RND(0)
50 IF X*X+Y*Y<1 THEN A=A+1
60 PRINT 4*A/B,8*A/B
70 GOTO 20
RUN
I don't know enough Java to be able to write this. In the video, the presenter appears to be creating a Java applet that approximates tau. Yet when tried entering the code I see into my compiler, I kept getting the following errors:
- The two methods under setup -- size and background -- mean nothing to my compiler.
- Laura Lemay tells us to have a paint method that takes a Graphics object, but instead we see a draw method that takes no such object.
- The random method doesn't work the way it appears on the video. The presenter seems to be using random like randint in TI-BASIC, but my Math.random() is more like the function rand in TI-BASIC. It returns a random double between 0 and 1.
- I have no point method. There is a drawLine method, but it takes ints -- that is, neither the doubles my random() returns nor the floats that x and y are specified to be.
Perhaps after I learn some more Java, I can go back and create a tau applet that actually works.
As I wrote two days ago, the probability of a randomly-chosen point lying in the circle is pi/4 = tau/8.
Estimates for pi appear in the left column and estimates for tau appear in the right column. This program has an infinite loop, so press Esc when you feel that the approximations are good enough.
8. MusiMasta
Here is a new song based on the digits of tau.
Calculating the Cosmos Chapter 6: The Planet that Swallowed its Children
Chapter 6 of Ian Stewart's Calculating the Cosmos: How Mathematics Unveils the Universe is called "The Planet that Swallowed its Children." As usual, Stewart begins with a quote:
"The star of Saturn is not a single star, but is a composite of three, which almost touch each other, never change or move relative to each other, and are arranged in a row along the zodiac, the middle one being three times larger than the lateral ones, and they are situated in this form: oOo." -- Galileo Galilei, Letter to Cosimo de' Medici, 30 July 1610.
This chapter is all about the planet Saturn and its most noticeable feature -- its rings. Here's how Stewart begins:
"When Galileo first pointed his telescope at Saturn, and drew what he saw, it looked like this...You can see why he described it as oOo in his excited letter to his sponsor Cosimo de' Medici."
Of course Stewart includes a drawing here, but I don't show it -- oOo is sufficient for us too. He published his discovery in a secret code:
"If anyone later made the same discovery, Galileo could then claim priority by deciphering this as Altissimum planetam tergeminum observavi: 'I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form.' Unfortunately Kepler deciphered it as Salve umbistineum geminatum Martia proles: 'Be greeted, double knob, children of Mars.'"
Oops, that's the wrong planet -- but luckily for Kepler, Mars does have two "children" (moons). As for Saturn, Galileo eventually realized that the "children" of Saturn weren't moons, but rings that can be seen only through a telescope:
"This fact alone tells us that the rings are very thin compared to the planet, but we now know that they're very thin indeed, a mere 20 metres."
It was Giovanni Cassini who studied the rings of Saturn in greater detail:
"The innermost ring is the B ring, the outermost is the A ring. Cassini also knew of a fainter C ring inside the A ring."
Kepler was able to calculate how fast the rings were moving around the planet:
"The speed of a ring particle in kilometres per second is 29.4 divided by the square root of its orbital radius, measured as a multiple of the radius of Saturn."
In modern times, NASA sent out the Voyager I probe to explore the ringed planet:
"Rich Terrile, one of the scientists working with the images, noticed something totally unexpected: dark shadows like fuzzy spokes of a wheel, which rotate."
It turns out that these shadows are previously undiscovered moons of Saturn. We now know that the ringed planet has 53 named moons and dozens of other satellites that have yet to be named.
At this point, Stewart describes a diagram which I can't show you:
"The diagram show the outer edge of the A ring, and the slanting white lines are regions where the particle density is greater than average."
It was long believed that Saturn is the only ringed planet:
"But in 1977 James Elliot, Edward Dunham, and Jessica Mink were making observations with the Kuiper Airborne Observatory, a transport aircraft equipped with a telescope and other apparatus."
The trio ultimately discover that Uranus has rings as well. The author describes what happens when a moon of Saturn or Uranus interact with the rings:
"It looks like the moon is repelling the ring, but actually the effect is the result of gravitational forces that slow the ring particles down."
The Voyager 2 probe viewed the moons of the two ringed planets in more detail:
"This makes the dynamics of the ring more complex, and it also means that the tidy explanation of a narrow ring held in place by shepherd moons is too simplistic."
We now know that all of the gas giants have rings, though some are very faint:
"Moreover, Douglas Hamilton and Michael Skrutskie discovered in 2009 that Saturn has an absolutely gigantic, but very faint, ring, far larger than the ones Galileo and the Voyagers saw."
It's even likely that some planets orbiting other other stars (exoplanets) have rings. So we ask, how do ring systems form?
"They may have formed when the original gas disc coalesced to create the planet; they could be relics of a moon that has been broken by a collision; they could be remains of a moon that got closer than the Roche limit, at which tidal forces exceed the strength of the rock, and broke up."
Stewart concludes the chapter by comparing ring formation to fossil formation:
"Each 'fossil' provides evidence for what happened in the past, but you need a hypothesis to interpret the evidence, and you need mathematical simulations or inferences or, better still, theorems to understand the consequences of that hypothesis."
More Tau Day Music
And now you're probably saying, here we go again! Even after most summer school classes are cancelled, first I start whining about summer school again, and now I go right back to music -- a topic that I wouldn't discuss unless I had a class to sing songs in.
But I can't help thinking about music again on Tau Day. Recall that on Phi, e, and Pi Days, I coded Mocha programs for songs based on their digits. Seeing the Vi Hart and Michael Blake songs again makes me want to code a tau song on Mocha.
And besides, last year I wrote about music on Tau Day. So it's logical to write a tau song in one of these new EDL scales, but which one should we choose?
Recall that Vi Hart uses a major tenth to represent 0. The ratio for a major tenth is 5/2 (found by multiplying the major third 5/4 by the octave 2/1). The ratio 5/2 is equivalent to 15/6, which is good because now the digits 2-9 fit between Degrees 15 and 6:
A Tau Day scale:
Digit Degree Ratio Note
1 15 1/1 tonic
2 14 15/14 septimal diatonic semitone
3 13 15/13 tridecimal ultramajor second (semifourth)
4 12 5/4 major third
5 11 15/11 undecimal augmented fourth
6 10 3/2 perfect fifth
7 9 5/3 major sixth
8 8 15/8 major seventh
9 7 15/7 septimal minor ninth
0 6 5/2 major tenth
- 5 3/1 tritave
This scale doesn't fit in an octave. Instead, we can think of this scale as fitting a tritave (3/1) instead, just like the Bohlen-Pierce scale. On Mocha, we can't actually play the full tritave since Degree 6, not 5, is the last degree playable in Mocha. But Degree 6 is the last degree needed for the tau song.
Indeed, this span occurs in real songs. Most real songs have a span of more than an octave -- we explored some holiday songs six months ago and found out how spans of a ninth or tenth appear to be fairly common. On the other hand, a twelfth, or tritave, is too wide. One famous song with a span of a tritave is our national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner." This song is considered one of the most difficult national anthems, and the reason is its tritave span. This tells us that while EDL scales based on an octave might be insufficient (as we'd want to venture a note or two beyond the octave), EDL's based on the tritave are more than enough.
Let's fill in Kite's color names for the EDL scale that we've written above, 15EDL. Notice that while octave EDL's must be even, tritave EDL's must be multiples of three, so they could be odd:
The 15EDL tritave scale:
Digit Degree Ratio Note
1 15 1/1 green F
2 14 15/14 red F#
3 13 15/13 thu G
4 12 5/4 white A
5 11 15/11 lavender B
6 10 3/2 green C
7 9 5/3 white D
8 8 15/8 white E
9 7 15/7 red F#
0 6 5/2 white A
- 5 3/1 green C
The names of some of these intervals are awkward. First of all, 15/14 is often called the "septimal diatonic semitone." But the name "diatonic semitone" ordinarily refers to a minor second, not an augmented unison -- even though the notes are spelled as the latter (gF-rF#). The reason that the name "diatonic" is used is that it's close to the diatonic semitone 16/15 (wE-gF) in cents. The name "septimal diatonic semitone" for 15/14 forces 15/7 (an octave higher) to be a "septimal minor ninth," even though it's spelled as an augmented octave.
Here we call 15/13 a "tridecimal ultramajor second." In terms of cents, it's even wider than the 8/7 supermajor second, hence the term "ultramajor." The alternative name "semifourth" for 15/13 is akin to the name "trienthird" for 14/13. Two "semifourths" (which would be 225/169) sounds very much like a perfect fourth (4/3 = 224/168).
Finally, here we call 15/11 an "undecimal augmented fourth." And indeed, we spell the interval as an augmented fourth (gF-luB). But it's actually narrower than 11/8, which we called a "semiaugmented fourth" (the difference is the comma 121/120). It might be better to call 15/11 a "subaugmented fourth" instead to emphasize that 15/11 is narrower than 11/8.
Here's what a Mocha program for the tau song might look like. (As usual, don't forget to click the Sound box to turn on the sound.)
NEW
10 N=16
20 FOR X=1 TO 52
30 READ A
40 SOUND 261-N*(16-A),4
50 NEXT X
60 DATA 6,2,8,3,1,8,4,3,10,7
70 DATA 1,7,9,5,8,6,4,7,6,9
80 DATA 2,5,2,8,6,7,6,6,5,5
90 DATA 9,10,10,5,7,6,8,3,9,4
100 DATA 3,3,8,7,9,8,7,5,10,2,1,1
This song ends at the same point as Vi Hart's song. If you want to add ten more notes to match Michael Blake's song, change 52 in line 20 to 62 and add digits 53-62:
110 DATA 6,4,1,9,4,9,8,8,9,1
Notice that unlike the songs for pi and other constants, I didn't need to set up an extra loop to code in the scale itself. Instead, the expression 16-A subtracts the digit from 16 to obtain a Degree in the range from 15 to 6 (though we had to represent 0 as 10 to make this formula work for zero).
Except for digits 1 and 0, the 15EDL scale doesn't exactly match the major scale used in the Hart and Blake videos. Notice that 15EDL that contains a just major triad on the root note -- the first even EDL containing the just major triad is 30EDL. But the just major triad for 15EDL is digits 1-4-6, while for Hart and Blake, 1-3-5 is a major triad. Moreover, in 15EDL, digits 7 and 8 are a major sixth and seventh respectively, as opposed to 6 and 7 in the Hart and Blake videos. Again, this reflects the nature of EDL scales, where the higher steps are wider than the lower steps.
This song uses a major tenth for 0, but suppose we wanted to follow Blake and rest on 0 instead. We might add the follow line:
35 IF A=10 THEN FOR Y=1 TO 400:NEXT Y,X
Making our song simulate Hart's is more complex -- that is, if we want to add the three verses of her song and all the other details. The easiest fix is to insert 4 in line 60, since Vi sings the note 4 to represent the decimal point. For Vi, 6-4-2 is a minor triad on ii, but for us, 6-4-2 corresponds to Degrees 10-12-14, which is a type of diminished triad (as I explained the day I posted about 14EDL).
Also, Hart doesn't sing all the notes as quarter notes, but varies the lengths -- so we'd need to add numbers representing lengths to the DATA lines. If at the very least, we want to sing the digits three times, with each verse containing more digits (just like Vi) then add the following lines:
15 FOR V=0 TO 2
20 FOR X=1 TO 9.5*V*V-.5*V+15
55 RESTORE: NEXT V
The strange formula here is an interpolating polynomial that passes through the points (0, 15), (1, 24), and (2, 52), to match the number of digits she sings in each verse.
Here are the roots of all the 15EDL scales available to us in Mocha:
Possible 15EDL root notes in Mocha:
Degree Note
15 green F
30 green F
45 green Bb
60 green F
75 gugu Db
90 green Bb
105 rugu G
120 green F
135 green Eb
150 gugu Db
165 lugu C
180 green Bb
195 thugu Ab
210 rugu G
225 gugu Gb
240 green F
255 sugu E
Notice that Vi Hart plays her song in either A or G major, while Michael Blake's is in C major. The closest available key to Hart's A is thugu Ab (N=13 as thu notes are sharper than they look -- white A is at Degree 192) while the nearest key to Hart's G is rugu G (N=14). Meanwhile, the closest key to Blake's C is lugu C (N=11).
By the way, when I was looking for Tau Day videos I stumbled upon two more videos detailing the relationship between math and music. One is by 3Blue1Brown, and that video itself mentions another video. I post both of them here:
210 rugu G
225 gugu Gb
240 green F
255 sugu E
Notice that Vi Hart plays her song in either A or G major, while Michael Blake's is in C major. The closest available key to Hart's A is thugu Ab (N=13 as thu notes are sharper than they look -- white A is at Degree 192) while the nearest key to Hart's G is rugu G (N=14). Meanwhile, the closest key to Blake's C is lugu C (N=11).
By the way, when I was looking for Tau Day videos I stumbled upon two more videos detailing the relationship between math and music. One is by 3Blue1Brown, and that video itself mentions another video. I post both of them here:
The Sweet Spot
The full Mocha Sound system starts at Sound 1 = Degree 260. Thus in a way, the Mocha Sound system can be described as a 260EDL scale. But this is a lot of notes, and so the EDL scales that I describe on the blog contain much fewer notes.
What exactly is the "sweet spot" of EDL scales? In other words, we seek out EDL's that contain enough -- but not too many -- notes to compose songs in.
In the past, I declared the sweet spot to be 12-22EDL. We started with 12EDL because the highest playable note in Mocha is Sound 255 = Degree 6, and one octave below this is Degree 12 -- thus 12EDL is the simplest fully playable EDL in Mocha. The next even EDL's also contain octaves, so these are 14EDL, 16EDL, 18EDL, 20EDL, and 22EDL. But then 24EDL contains 12EDL as a subset, since 24 has 12 as a factor. A song written in 24EDL is likely to emphasize the 12EDL subset, which is why I considered 22EDL to be the last EDL in the sweet spot.(Notice that last year, I never actually posted anything in 22EDL, and so 12-20EDL ended up being the sweet spot on the blog.)
Even though 24EDL might reduce to 12EDL, 26EDL doesn't reduce as simply. I was considering sneaking 26EDL into the sweet spot as well, if only because 260EDL -- the entire Mocha system -- has 26 as a factor. In other words, the range 12-26EDL is completely based on the highest and lowest playable notes in Mocha, our EDL instrument. This doesn't necessarily mean that this range makes the most musical sense.
In recent posts, I mentioned that the composer Sevish actually posted a song to YouTube that is written partly in 10EDL. Earlier, I considered 12EDL to be the simplest EDL in the sweet spot, but I can understand the allure of a scale like 10EDL. After all, we do have pentatonic scales and many songs written in them. (Of course, we also have a few songs with four notes, as well as the Google Fischinger player with four-note scales. But 8EDL doesn't really have the correct four notes.) Just as we did for the tritave-based 15EDL above, we'll have to cheat and end our scale on Degree 5, even though this last note isn't really playable in Mocha.
So we may want to include 10EDL in the sweet spot, since there is a real musician (Sevish) writing music in 10EDL. As far as I know, no one has written music in 20EDL, so perhaps this is a reason not to include 20EDL in the sweet spot. Meanwhile, I do see evidence for 18EDL being used as a scale in real music -- the interval 18/17, "the Arabic lute index finger." This name suggests that at one time, Arabic lutes (ouds) were fretted to divide the string in eighteenths for 18EDL.
The idea of 10-18EDL as the sweet spot also reminds me of one justification for bases 10-18 as the sweet spot for number bases (decimal through octodecimal). A few posters at the Dozenal Forum have mentioned the idea of "seven plus or minus two" (that is, the range 5-9) as the ideal length of lists that humans can handle. Thus bases 10-18 contain 5-9 pairs of digits, and the 10-18EDL scales contain 5-9 notes. Indeed, the most commonly played scales contain five (pentatonic) to nine (melodic minor) notes as well.
That settles it -- 10-18EDL is the sweet spot based on real music. Let's write out all of the scales in the sweet spot, using Kite's new color notation.
The 10EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
10 1/1 0 green C
9 10/9 182 white D
8 5/4 386 white E
7 10/7 617 red F#
6 5/3 884 white A
5 2/1 1200 green C
The 12EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
12 1/1 0 white A
11 12/11 151 lavender B
10 6/5 316 green C
9 4/3 498 white D
8 3/2 702 white E
7 12/7 933 red F#
6 2/1 1200 white A
The 14EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
14 1/1 0 red F#
13 14/13 128 thu G
12 7/6 267 white A
11 14/11 418 lavender B
10 7/5 583 green C
9 14/9 765 white D
8 7/4 969 white E
7 2/1 1200 red F#
The 16EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
16 1/1 0 white E
15 16/15 112 green F
14 8/7 231 red F#
13 16/13 359 thu G
12 4/3 498 white A
11 16/11 649 lavender B
10 8/5 814 green C
9 16/9 996 white D
8 2/1 1200 white E
The 18EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
18 1/1 0 white D
17 18/17 99 su D#
16 9/8 204 white E
15 6/5 316 green F
14 9/7 435 red F#
13 18/13 563 thu G
12 3/2 702 white A
11 18/11 853 lavender B
10 9/5 1018 green C
9 2/1 1200 white D
Actually, let's go ahead and sneak 20EDL and 22EDL into our sweet spot anyway (just as I wanted to sneak 24EDL and 26EDL back when 12-22EDL was our sweet spot). Here 20EDL and 22EDL may be useful only because they are the first EDL's with something resembling a "leading tone" -- the last ascending note that leads into the octave:
The 20EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
20 1/1 0 green C
19 20/19 89 inu C#
18 10/9 182 white D
17 20/17 281 su D#
16 5/4 386 white E
15 4/3 498 green F
14 10/7 617 red F#
13 20/13 746 thu G
12 5/3 884 white A
11 20/11 1035 lavender B
10 2/1 1200 green C
The 22EDL Octave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
22 1/1 0 lavender B
21 22/21 81 red B
20 11/10 165 green C
19 22/19 254 inu C#
18 11/9 347 white D
17 22/17 446 su D#
16 11/8 551 white E
15 22/15 663 green F
14 11/7 782 red F#
13 22/13 911 thu G
12 11/6 1049 white A
11 2/1 1200 lavender B
Let's add two more tritave scales in this range -- since I already wrote 15EDL earlier in this post, let's add 18EDL and 21EDL:
The 18EDL Tritave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
18 1/1 0 white D
17 18/17 99 su D#
16 9/8 204 white E
15 6/5 316 green F
14 9/7 435 red F#
13 18/13 563 thu G
12 3/2 702 white A
11 18/11 853 lavender B
10 9/5 1018 green C
9 2/1 1200 white D
8 9/4 1404 white E
7 18/7 1635 red F#
6 3/1 1902 white A
The 21EDL Tritave:
Degree Ratio Cents Note
21 1/1 0 red B
20 21/20 84 green C
19 21/19 173 inu C#
18 7/6 267 white D
17 21/17 366 su D#
16 21/16 471 white E
15 7/5 583 green F
14 3/2 702 red F#
13 21/13 830 thu G
12 7/4 969 white A
11 21/11 1119 lavender B
10 21/10 1284 green C
9 7/3 1467 white D
8 21/8 1671 white E
7 3/1 1902 red F#
[2020 update: In my Tau Day Adam post, I mentioned that I was considering writing one of my songs from the old charter school, "Roots," in 24EDL. Let's wait until I actually compose the song and figure out which EDL is best. Meanwhile, I've already decided that two other songs will definitely be written in 20EDL.]
The Arabic Lute
Returning to EDL scales, I've mentioned how fascinated I am by the name "Arabic lute index finger" for the interval 18/17, and its suggestion that the oud must have been fretted to 18EDL.
The following YouTube video is all about refretting a guitar to experiment which tuning makes the song sound better. The piece, written by Cage -- I mean Bach -- is called "Air." (Hofstadter gives "Air on G's String" as the title of one of his dialogues, but I don't know whether it's related to the "Air" piece in the video.)
Of the four tunings, one is just intonation, one is standard 12EDO, and the others are compromises between JI and 12EDO, called "well temperament."
In the comments at YouTube, many people found JI to be the best-sounding near the beginning, where many major chords are played. JI is based on pure ratios, such as the 4:5:6 major triad. But near the end, the piece became more melodic than harmonic. At this point, the best-sounding tuning according to the commenters became 12EDO, whose equal step sizes make melodies sound nice. The two well-temperaments are intermediate in both the harmonic and melodic sections. (The first tuning is closer to JI and thus sounds better harmonically, while the last tuning is closer to 12EDO and thus sounds better melodically.)
Notice that EDL scales are based on ratios and thus are closely related to JI. It's a shame, though, that Mocha can only play one note at a time -- it's melodic rather than harmonic. (Last year on Tau Day, I did mention the Atari computer that could play EDL-based harmony .)
The fretting is quite complex for all of the tunings except 12EDO. Actually, a fretting based on EDL's (which our hypothetical oud has) would look even simpler. Like 12EDO, the frets would at the same position for all the strings. The only difference is that the frets would be equally spaced apart -- exactly 1/18 of the length of the whole string. (That's what 18EDL -- 18 equal divisions of length -- really means after all.)
Imagine if the guitars in the video were fretted to 18EDL. Let's keep the standard EADGBE tuning, except we assume that all of these are white notes (Kite colors). This means that the interval between consecutive strings (E-A, A-D, and so on) is the perfect fourth 4/3. Then all of the notes fretted at the first fret (by the index finger, of course) are colored 17u ("su"), Second fret notes become white, third fret notes are green, and fourth fret notes are red.
Now let's try playing some chords using this tuning. We start with an E major chord -- a basic open chord that beginning guitarists learn to play. This chord is played as:
EBEG#BE
wE-wB-wE-suG#-wB-wE
The JI 4:5:6 would require G# to be yellow rather than su, but yellow (an "over" or "otonal" color) isn't available in EDL (which is based on "under" or "utonal" colors). Fortunately, the su 3rd (about 393 cents) lies about halfway between the yellow 5/4 3rd and the 12EDO major 3rd. Thus this E major chord will probably sound like one of the well temperaments from the video.
EDL's are supposed to be better at playing under/utonal chords, which minor chords are. So let's try playing E minor rather than E major:
EBEGBE
wE-wB-wE-wG-wB-wE
Now all the notes end up white. Chords with all white notes are considered dissonant -- this chord is known as the Pythagorean minor chord.
Let's try some A chords now. We begin with A major:
xAEAC#E
wA-wE-wA-wC#-wE
This is another dissonant all-white chord -- the Pythagorean major chord. We move on to A minor:
xAEACE
wA-wE-wA-suB#-wE
The first fret on the B string isn't even C -- officially it's su B#. This note is 13 cents flatter than green C -- the note that belongs in an A minor chord. It probably won't sound terrible in a chord only because at 303 cents, the interval wA-suB# is only three cents wider than the 12EDO minor 3rd and sounds indistinguishable from it.
So far, we have the passable (or "well tempered") E major and A minor chords, and dissonant Pythagorean E minor and A major chords. Moving on to D major, an obvious problem arises:
xxDADF#
wD-wA-gD-wF#
Now the two D notes aren't even the same color, so now we have dissonant octaves. Changing this from D major to D minor doesn't eliminate the dissonant octave on D.
So why are we having so much trouble with these basic chords? If we return to A minor, we notice that the third fret on the open A string indeed plays the green C needed for A minor. But the A string can't be used for green C, because it's too busy sounding the white A! In other words, most of the time, two or three notes we need to make chords sound on the same string.
The following link describes how actual Arabic lutes may have been tuned:
https://larkinthemorning.com/blogs/articles/the-oud-the-arabic-lute
Notice that even on that blog, there's still no mention of the "Arabic lute index finger," the interval 18/17, or 18EDL fretting. But we do see that instead of EADGBE, traditional tunings for ouds include DGADGC, ADEADG, and EABEAD.
But unfortunately, even with EABEAD, some JI chords remain difficult to finger and play. One of these days I'd like to solve the mystery of the Arabic lute, its index finger, and 18EDL.
Conclusion: Traditionalists, Quadratics, and Tau
Last year, I avoided the traditionalists' debate on Tau Day. But this year, I'm bringing up the debate because one of our traditionalists -- Darren Miller, of Right(-wing) on the Left Coast, actually mentioned the number au in one of his posts. This was a little more than six months ago, back in his December 12th post. (In other words, it was just about tau months ago.)
https://rightontheleftcoast.blogspot.com/2019/12/this-is-not-new-way-to-solve-quadratic.html
Loh has discovered nothing new here. His method isn't "widely taught" because it's not as efficient (or indeed as elegant) as the standard approach: derive the quadratic equation by completing the square, then use the quadratic formula to solve quadratic equations. This "discovery" smacks of someone trying to make a splash and get some acclaim, sort of like those who claim that we should not use pi but instead should use tau (which equals 2*pi). Silly, unnecessary, unhelpful.
Of course we'd expect a traditionalist to consider tau to be silly and unhelpful -- traditionalists, by definition, prefer traditions to new things, and it's traditional to use pi as the circle constant, not tau.
The subject of Miller's post here is actually quadratics. Around the time of this post in December, there was a viral video about a new way to solve quadratic equations:
I notice that the comments at YouTube are split. Some commenters agree with Miller that this isn't really a better method. The other commenters claim that this "new" way is how quadratics are taught to be solved in other countries.
Well, if other countries that regularly score higher than the US in math are teaching it this way, then more power to them. We should definitely consider teaching it the new way here.
By the way, recall that in my Tau Day Adam post, we needed to solve the following quadratic:
x^2 + 9x - 910 = 0
Using the new method, here's how we solve it:
9/2 = 4.5
4.5^2 - z^2 = -910
20.25 - z^2 = -910
z^2 = 930.25
z = 30.5
4.5 + 30.5 = 35
4.5 - 30.5 = -26
x = 35 or x = -26
What makes this method tricky is the fact that the coefficient B is odd, so half of it has a .5 in it. We can do it in our head only if we remember how to square numbers ending in .5 easily:
4 * 5 = 20, so 4.5^2 = 20.25
30 * 31 = 930, so 30.5^2 = 930.25
In cases where B is even, I think it's easier to use the new method in our head than the traditional Quadratic Formula.
On the other hand, a tauist might prefer to use the standard Quadratic Formula, if only because according to the video, it was discovered by the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta in the year 628 (the first three digits of tau -- get it?). And of course, for those who have trouble remembering the Quadratic Formula, there's always the Quadratic Weasel song.
Unfortunately, there are no known countries where tau is being taught instead of pi. That's too bad -- it would be great to see whether teaching tau will lead to more success in math than teaching pi.
And of course I don't wish to tie up my Tau Day post with a long traditionalists' discussion, but I must link to what Barry Garelick posted yesterday -- Tau Day Eve:
https://traditionalmath.wordpress.com/2020/06/27/nothing-really-that-new-under-the-sun-dept/
There is a continuing chorus of complaints about how math is taught from those who seek to reform math education. The chief complaint is the lack of transfer of knowledge. That is, students cannot seem to take their prior knowledge and apply it to problems that rely on the same knowledge but are in new or novel settings.
The reformers then talk about how we need to build students’ “depth of knowledge” to get to the holy grail of “deeper understanding”.
Our main commenter, SteveH, wrote:SteveH:
When I taught college math and CS, the programming tests counted very little. That’s common in computer science education. The grade was all about individually creating a working program – the homework. that’s the way K-12 math should be. Homework P-sets are like a weekly take home test that’s graded. Everyone can get a ‘A’. That’s going to be my new theme for math – grade homework. Tests are only for keeping everyone honest.
Whether homework should be graded is a major point of contention among teachers. And the comparison to computer science is interesting, certainly now that Java is one of my summer projects.
But I don't wish to tie up my Tau Day post with a long discussion of this issue. It deserves a separate post in the future.
If I timed this correctly, this post should appear on exactly 6/28 at 3:18 -- as in tau = 6.28318. In other words, Happy Tau Day everybody!
