this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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Really depends on the situation. If you have to land an aircraft on the moon, you better get the value of π right.
However when estimating the distance to another galaxy, you're not gonna fly there so you just want to know the order of magnitude: is it 10^9 or 10^15 miles away?
It may be a joke from xkcd, but I am not sure anyone in their right mind would bother using 10 instead of 3 or whatever.
https://xkcd.com/2205/
possibly relevant in the context: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2205:_Types_of_Approximation
Holy shit a site that explains xkcd jokes. You just made my whole week.
Let's not pretend none of us have ever not understood an xkcd comic.
My brother has a PhD in astrophysics and he said similar likes like pi is 10.