Alabama Changes Value of Pi

　　The April 1998 newsletter put out by New Mexicans for science and Reason contains an article titled "Alabama Legislature Lays Siege to Pi". It was penned by April Holiday of the Associmated Press (sic) and told the story of how the Alabama state legislature voted to change the value of the mathematical constant Pi from 3.14159 to the round number of 3.

　　The ersatz(假的)news story was written by Los Alamos National Laboratory physicist Mark Boslough to parody(滑稽地模仿)legislative and school board attacks on the teaching of evolution in New Mexico.

　　At Boslough's suggestion, Dave Thomas, the president of New Mexicans for science and Reason, posted the article in its entirety to the Internet newsgroup Talk. Origins on April 1. (The newsgroup hosts a lively debate on creation vs. evolution.) Later that evening Thomas posted a full confession to the hoax. He thought he had put all rumors to bed.

　　But to Thomas's surprise, however, several newsgroup readers forwarded the article to friends and posted it on other newsgroups.

　　When Thomas checked in on the story a few weeks later, he was surprised to learn that it had spread like wildfire. The telltale signs of the article's satirical intent, such as the April 1 date and misspelled "Associmated Press" dateline, had been replaced or deleted.

　　Alabama legislators were bombarded with calls protesting the law. The legislators explained that the news was a hoax. There was not and never had been such a law.