Should We Use Tau Instead of Pi in Physics Papers?

[Timothy S]

I'm not a physicist or scientist but I am curious as to what your opinions are about using tau instead of pi in physics papers and research. Would you be able to get away with it, or would your peer reviewers get confused?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Tau has multiple meanings. You need to define it in context.

The only math symbols that are commonly used without defining in context are pi and e (2.718...)

 

[Timothy S]

"...tau instead of pi...", this was quoted verbatim from my original post. Is that not enough context for you dr?

 

[Dr. Courtney]

With that attitude, I bet you can look forward to great letters of recommendation.

Could you not discern that I was talking about that math symbols need to be defined in the context of their use in journal articles, etc.?

Tau has different meanings in different contexts and most readers will not recognize that 2pi is intended unless it is explicitly defined.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau

and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

 

[Evo]

"...tau instead of pi...", this was quoted verbatim from my original post. Is that not enough context for you dr?

No that is not enough, apparently you do not know what you are talking about.