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83,431 Recited Digits of Pi

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the lots-of-memory dept.

i_like_spam writes "59-year-old Akira Haraguchi of Japan recently broke the world record for the recited number of digits of Pi. Haraguchi-san recited an amazing 83,431 digits of Pi during a 13-hour overnight stretch. This almost doubles the previous record of 42,195 digits by fellow Japanese Hiroyuki Goto. Though it is not yet updated to reflect the new record, the Pi-World-Ranking-List has the rules for participation and breaks down the ranking by world, continent, and country. Links to world rankings for memorized digits of E and Sqrt(2) are also given."

9 of 433 comments (clear)

  1. Miscalculation? by Adrilla · · Score: 4, Informative

    Haraguchi-san recited an amazing 83,431 digits of Pi during a 13-hour overnight stretch. This more than doubles the previous record of 42,195 digits by fellow Japanese Hiroyuki Goto.

    Um, I'm not a math major, but since when is 83,431 > 84,390, which is double the amount of 42,195? You don't even need a calculator to figure that one out. But as far as the accomplishment goes: That's a simply amazing feat, I applaud Haraguchi greatly, How do you memorize a number that deep, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast.

    --

    "Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
    1. Re:Miscalculation? by i_like_spam · · Score: 5, Informative

      To set the record straight...

      ...as a mistake, I initially typed '84,431', which more than doubles the previous record. After finding and correcting my numerical mistake, I forgot to change 'more than doubles' to 'nearly doubles'. Oops.

    2. Re:Miscalculation? by baadger · · Score: 2, Informative

      The preceeding sentence to "This more than doubles the previous record" mentions time, which suggests to me the record it refers to is a measure of performance of reciting Pi - measured by the rate of recital, not the number of digits managed.

      The reason time wasn't mentioned in the claim i.e. "this more than doubles the previous record of 21,195 digits in X hours" is most likely because the information wasn't available to the submitter.

    3. Re:Miscalculation? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. They reiterate a formula in their head.

      http://mathworld.wolfram.com/BBPFormula.html

  2. Still a t-shirt by moz25 · · Score: 2, Informative

    For the beginning reciters among us, we at least still have a nice t-shirt with the first 4493 digits of Pi in the shape of the Pi symbol.

    --
    see a Text Widget
  3. Re:Japanese suffixes by Lovejoy · · Score: 3, Informative

    First of all, he's 59 years old.

    Second, you can call a little boy "mister" or preferably, "master."

    Third, calling someone "SoAndSo-san" while you're otherwise speaking English sounds really stupid to people who actually speak Japanese.

    Finally, you wouldn't use san for a little boy either. You'd call him kun or possibly , chan.

    /pedantry

    --
    Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
  4. Some Background by Kramer747 · · Score: 2, Informative

    From Mathworld at Wolfram Apparently Pi shows up in the bible twice. Weird.

    Also, wikipedia has a rather complete coverage of the topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

  5. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  6. Re:I use a mnemonic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    ... such as the BBP formula, which is amazingly simple (and easy to memorize!), converges at more than one hex digit per iteration, and can be used to extract an arbitrary hex digit.