#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi
The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.
Actually the biblical value of “3” is just as accurate as the 3.14159 value listed, it is just not as precise. By the same logic you could argue that 3.14159 is not accurate because the actual precise value is an infinite string. Accuracy and precision are two different things.
Actually, it was the Hoosier House, in 1898. They were real fools, not an April Fool. The bill died in the Senate.