Indiana Pi Bill

1897 proposed law to define squaring the circle Goodwin's model circle as described in section 2 of the bill. It has a diameter of 10 and a stated circumference of "32" (not 31.4159~); the chord of 90° has length stated as "7" (not 7.0710~). The Indiana pi bill was bill 246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most notorious attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat. Despite its name, the main result claimed by the bill is a method to square the circle. The bill implies incorrect values of the mathematical constant π, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.[1] The bill, written by a physician and an amateur mathematician, never became law due to the intervention of C. A. Waldo, a professor at Purdue University, who happened to be present in the legislature on the day it went up for a vote. The mathematical impossibility of squaring the circle using only straightedge and compass constructions, suspected since ancient t ... Read full article.