who tried to legislate a value for pi
Indiana Pi Bill The Indiana Pi Bill is the popular name for bill #246 of the 1897 sitting of the Indiana General Assembly, one of the most notorious attempts to establish mathematical truth by legislative fiat. Despite its name, the main result claimed by the bill is a method to square the circle, rather than to establish a certain value for the mathematical constant π, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The bill, written by amateur mathematician Edward J. Goodwin, does imply various incorrect values of π, such as 3.2.