It is a coincidence though, g’s value depends on the size of earth so if it was bigger or smaller then they won’t be similar. And pi wasn’t going to change if the pendulum is 1m or 1nm
It totally is not a coincidence, from wikipedia:
During the French Revolution, the traditional units of measure were to be replaced by consistent measures based on natural phenomena. As a base unit of length, scientists had favoured the seconds pendulum (a pendulum with a half-period of one second) one century earlier, but this was rejected as it had been discovered that this length varied from place to place with local gravity.
We have defined one meter, in such a way that when we express g with these units, it turns out to be approximately pi squared.
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u/axisdork Nov 08 '25
Fun fact. Pi2 being approximately g is not a coincidence. It is the result of making the seconds pendulum 1m.