A growing movement argues that killing pi would make mathematics simpler, easier and even more beautiful.
At its heart, pi refers to a semicircle, whereas tau refers to the circle in its entirety. Mathematician and poet Mike Keith once wrote a 10,000 word poem dedicated to the first 10,000 digits of pi. He is now a proponent of tau. According to a PBS article from last year, he said that thinking in terms of pi is like reaching your destination and saying you’re twice halfway there.