April Fools!

In honor of this holiday, I would like to give a link to a story that I think is hilarious, and apparently actually fooled a large number of people.

Alabama Changes Number of Pi to Biblical 3.0

The article was written as a joke in reference to the lawsuits occuring in New Mexico at the time trying to outlaw the study of Evolution in schools. After it was posted on a website where that issue was regularly discussed (with plenty of clues in the article as to the fact that it was a hoax such as being written by April Holliday of the Associmated Press), the article was quickly forwarded to other places (but with the clues changed or removed). The Alabama Legislature was bombarded with calls outraged that they would change the value of Pi.

The best line from the article in my opinion is from one of the scientists, "I wish they had discussed this with people who actually use Pi."

National Geographic online has some looks at other famous April Fools pranks (as well as info on this one.)