July 5, 2026
Circle nerds found a new obsession
Pi square is nearly 10
Math fans lose it over pi, tau, and the wild claim that pi squared is basically 10
TLDR: A math post argues that pi squared is very close to 10 and shows a simple reason why. Commenters quickly turned it into a mix of number trivia, tau-vs-pi sniping, and jokes about founding a cult where Earth’s gravity finally matches the math.
A quiet math post somehow turned into a tiny comment-section soap opera after one bold claim: pi squared is almost 10. The author walks readers through a neat proof showing why the famous number behind circles lands surprisingly close to 10, then casually stirs the pot by opening with an old nerd feud: tau vs. pi. For non-math people, tau is just another way some enthusiasts want to write circle formulas. And yes, the commenters absolutely took that bait.
The strongest reactions were less about the proof itself and more about the vibes. One reader admitted their first instinct was basically, “Well, duh, pi is a bit more than 3,” but still gave the post credit for showing the gap in a satisfyingly tidy way. Another launched a wonderfully petty visual argument from the Greek alphabet, joking that since tau has one vertical line and pi has two, maybe pi should really equal two tau, not the other way around. That is the exact level of math drama the internet was born for.
Then the thread took a delightfully chaotic turn into numerical coincidence fandom. One commenter pointed out that the whole “pi squared is about Earth’s gravity” thing is famous enough to have its own Wikipedia section. Another shared a university memory about pi times 10^7 being close to the number of seconds in a year. But the real show-stealer was the person disappointed Earth’s gravity never quite hits the perfect pi-squared value anywhere on the planet, because that would have been the ideal — if chilly — place “to start a cult.” Honestly? That comment wins the day.
Key Points
- •The article uses Euler’s Basel problem result, \(\sum_{n=1}^{\infty} 1/n^2 = \pi^2/6\), to analyze why \(\pi^2\) is close to 10.
- •By comparing \(1/n^2\) terms with \(4/(4n^2-1)\) and using a telescoping decomposition, the author derives \(\zeta(2) \le 5/3\).
- •From the inequality \(\zeta(2) \le 5/3\), the post concludes that \(\pi^2 \le 10\).
- •The difference between 10 and \(\pi^2\) is written as a rapidly converging series, with the total error estimated at about 0.125.
- •The article suggests mental-math applications of the approximation, including quickly estimating that \(\log_{10}(\pi)\) is slightly less than 0.5.