[hutzlibu]

I also don't know how accurate that description is, but this comic comes to mind:

https://xkcd.com/2205/

But I mean, space is really, really big and we are observing from one single spot with (on cosmological scale probably) primitive technology. So of course most of it is guessing and when you "guess" a lot of things, it maybe does not matter a lot, if you have 3.41 Pi or 1, when the data you have are rough estimates anyway. But sure, when you do sloppy math, when you could have precision - that would be just wrong and unscientific.

[dylan604]

What if you have 3.14Pi?

[dotancohen]

Then you're so close to 10 that you can just use 10.

I actually did that on a physics exam once. Somehow I had a value with pi squared. I just replaced it with 10. I don't remember if I got that question right or wrong - I'm hard pressed to think of a situation where pi squared actually legitimately shows up.

[rmu09]

Surface area of a Torus?

[dotancohen]

Not that I remember, or really relevant to undergrad physics - I'm pretty sure it was physics. Fusion and accretion disks are above my pay grade!

[olddustytrail]

That's pretty much pi squared. Which, for weirdly good reason, is close to the value of G in meters per second squared.

[dylan604]

only on this particular rock

[olddustytrail]

Nope, on all rocks.