Interest has soared in exploring tau’s role in these diseases. The collection of diseases associated with these tangles is now called “tauopathies.” Other scientists later discovered that polymers made of tau form neurofibrillary tangles, structures found in the brain cells of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, prefrontal dementias and other neurodegenerative conditions. But in 1975, they had no idea of the implications for neurology. The researchers realized that the protein acts like a glue that holds together the microtubules, whose building blocks are another protein called tubulin. ![]() His student Murray Weingarten led the discovery paper, but Kirschner chose the name for it: Tau. While exploring these small formations in pig brain cells, Kirschner and his graduate students at Princeton University isolated a protein no one had described before. In 1975, Marc Kirschner was interested in microtubules, tiny tubes that help give structure to cells. In fact, the colorful threads of tau form an intricate fabric of cutting edge-scientific inquiry. Since I first read the manifesto, I’ve noticed that this Greek letter has popped up in several unrelated but groundbreaking scientific discoveries, as well as formulas that engineers commonly use today. Hartl chose tau to represent 2pi because it nicely ties in with the Greek word “tornos,” meaning “turn,” and “looks like a pi with one leg instead of two.” But he is not the first to turn to the letter tau to represent an influential idea. (The lengthy manifesto has more in-depth pro-tau discussions, and there is also a “Pi Manifesto” rebuttal.) For instance: a quarter circle is “tau/4” radians instead of the current “pi/2” radians, which could be seen as a more simple and elegant way to define sections of circles. But I respect how deeply Hartl has thought about tau and the benefits it carries. To obliterate the use of pi, first introduced as a symbol with its present meaning by William Jones in 1706, would upend more than 300 years of mathematical notation. “By choosing to define the circle constant in terms of the diameter, you introduce this factor of 2.”įull disclosure: pi is my favorite number and the one I am most known for writing about (i.e. “The circle constant ought to be defined in terms of radius,” Hartl told me over the chatter of other café patrons. He named that number tau, and declared June 28 (6/28) to be Tau Day. ![]() A more appropriate number to work with when it comes to circles would be 2pi, or about 6.28. In his popular 2010 “Tau Manifesto,” inspired by Bob Palais’ 2001 essay “Pi Is Wrong,” Hartl posits that pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, creates unnecessary complications in many formulas. ![]() Pastry puns aside, Hartl has achieved minor internet fame for arguing that tau is superior to its vastly better known cousin. He reluctantly admitted that pi, the constant approximately equal to 3.14, has this one advantage over tau, a number he introduced to replace it. “It is lamentable that there’s no famous dessert named ‘tau,’” Michael Hartl told me recently at a sunny, stylish café in Venice, California.
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