@zebratron2084 this happens well after any reasonable ability for what technology can possibly measure so physics still seems to work and affects the actual computers within the universe so they just give that answer if they get that far

(even people would get that answer if they could manage to get that far, but no one's been good enough to reach that point just as the max human calculated digits of pi is much smaller)

@zebratron2084 like within the reality of the simulated universe the math is just wrong, but no one can really get that far to realize that without having already traveled to other realities and seen the different values

@zebratron2084 and by manipulating these slight errors in calculation you get magic

@zebratron2084 it's all very fridge logical but I'm certain it's technically wrong

@zebratron2084 Basically everything except computation is good enough to fool the occupants of the simulated realities but not in a way that they would fail to get reasonable calculations of physical phenomena, not would that recognize it's off without noticing the discrepancy between realities

@zebratron2084 it's really mostly a sort of rejoinder to the type of tech nerds who are like "universes are too complicated to simulate" because it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect to fool people

@zebratron2084 plus being annoyed by math nerds who are like "math is a universal; it's the language of the universe"

@chimerror "There are more things on the number line, Ada / Than are dreamt of in their philosophy." :)

Let's put it this way: I did a quickie search for "could the value of pi have been different," and while the VAST majority of replies were the neepery you were braced for, the discussions fell REAL quick into "well, pi is DEFINED as the ratio of the circumference and diameter of a circle IN A EUCLIDEAN PLANE."

So IMHO all you'd have to do is say "well, screw you, this ISN'T set in a perfectly Euclidean universe AND the locals have quite reasonably defined pi as the ratio of circumference to diameter IN THIS FUCKED UP SKEWED PLACE. Your pi still exists in a hypothetical but USELESS Euclidean plane; our characters will stick with what actually keeps machines working in this universe kthxbai."

They can nitpick all they like; it's no more meaningful than taking your alien riding beasts you called "horses" for convenience and nitpicking that they don't have hooves like "real horses." Well, they're NOT real horses, and you never claimed they were. Pi is a standard, a defined concept, and "well, we're removing the Euclidean plane part because people are gonna need to ACTUALLY USE THIS" is IMHO totally cromulent.

@zebratron2084 like even more it's not like our actual universe is Euclidean!!!

@zebratron2084 some smart guy whose name we now use as a general term for smart people wrote the book on that, it's called A General Theory of Relativity!

@chimerror It's a really interesting idea, regardless, and I think it's *well* within the realm of "listen, it's a damn fantasy premise." FWIW, I've seen no less than Charlie Stross play at least as wooishly with math... (See his FANTASTIC story of memetic subversion, "Antibodies," which I believe was in his "Toast" anthology, which plays REAL fast & loose with the consequences of P = NP...)

@zebratron2084 that's good to hear!