On this day (May 5) in 1897, the Indiana House of Representatives passed a bill by Democrat State Rep. Taylor I. Record changing pi to 3.2. Indiana schools could use pi for free, but anyone else using pi in a math equation could have to pay royalties to Dr. Edwin Goodwin, a Taylor constituent who developed it.
The bill was headed to passage in the Senate when a mathematics professor who happened to be in the Capitol was shown the bill by a proud legislator. After coaching state senators on the idiocy of what they were doing, it was tabled and never passed.
(HT to Lawrence Reed)
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