Vi Hart, who knows more about math than I ever will, made a video and two pies especially for Pi Day, which she says we should call Half-Tau Day. She lost me when she said a pie is really 2pi, because I never took that class. I will take a slice of cherry, if you don't mind. Link -via The Daily What
2Pi is more useful. So yeah!
But Tau is already taken for anybody who's concerned with electronics. It's the intrinsic time constant of an RC circuit. So equations that describe voltage/current over time and use Pi and Tau together are, well, impossible with the new 2Pi. So no.
On the other hand, we need to start rethinking all the language, standards and other ancient baggage we carry here in America that works against engineering and technology. What about the metric system? How many Neatorama readers even realize that "Pi Day" is only possible in the US, the only country where the month precedes the day in dates. Everywhere else it's 14/3/2011, which makes more sense really.
But noooo we have to be different, measure volume with "cubic feet" (Huh!?), drink (American) pints of beer and confuse everybody with our strange date notation... Still bothered with PI, 2PI?
"But Tau is already taken for anybody who's concerned with electronics. It's the intrinsic time constant of an RC circuit."
Since when has that ever stopped anyone before.
In my grad level fluid dynamics class we have gone through every letter in the Latin and Greek alphabet twice trying to add symbols to concepts.
Take for example P, not the actual letter but any figure with a line and a loop to the right, they are using it for Pressure, Momentum, and density, as well as their subsidiaries, like absolute pressure. Next thing you know half your equation is the letter P!
If you change pi even by a factor of just 2 you will have to change the Euler's relation and that will throw all all this fancy calculus that is the basis of modern science.
Next thing you know my airplane falls out of the sky because someone forgot to divide by two somewhere.
@kakungulu: Personally I find the "US" choice to be the most elegant solution. Maybe not the most practical but, if you want to talk practicality I think a more specifying order would be better stating the year first, then the month, then the date. except the year doesn't change quick enough for the average person to forget, so It's best to keep it last or just leave it off entirely. e.g. 3-14-2011, 3-14.
As to your comment about it being only the US... in china I believe the standard way of writing is “?????” which translates out to ??=3rd month ???=14th day. Exactly like the US.