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83,431 Recited Digits of Pi
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."
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)
She only recited 10, the other numbers were just dupes.
A 59-year-old Japanese psychiatric counselor set a world record of sorts Sunday by reciting "pi," or the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, to 83,431 digits.
Good, now she can counsel herself on having more exciting things to do than learning and reciting the digits of a number anyone of us can look up.
see a Text Widget
When i think of hobbies, learning a sequence of 83,000 digits sounds like a good time.
Some would say that 3.1459 is more than enough.
(I tried to hold back - I really did)
The worlds longest list of virgins has been found
How do you know they are reciting, and not actually working it all out as they go along?
Wait..er...the odds of him actually having a girlfriend are 83,431 to 1.
83,431 digits is about 33.8 kB of data. Read out over 13 hours means the data rate averages under 6 baud -- and I thought 110 baud modem on a teletype was slow.
I don't even want to think about the write speed of this storage device. At least the storage capacity of the device has nearly doubled (from 42,195 digits or 17.1 kB).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
bash.org #98
i don't have hard drives. i just keep 30 chinese teenagers in my basement and force them to memorize numbers
Direct away from face when opening.
A person has a fixed amount of mental capability. This capability is divided into three categories:
1) Memorization
2) Logical Thinking
3) Wasted watching 'Surivor'.
The more time you spend on #1, the less you have for #2 and #3. The more on #2, the less for #1 and #3. The more on #3, the less for #1 and #2.
Note that Albert Einstein was not considered to have a super high IQ by "world changing genius" standards. But the dude could not even remember his phone number or address. Clearly he robbed #1 to get more #2.
I am not sure what this counselor's total intelligence is. But she sure wasted precious brain cells on something that is irrelevant (3.141592654 gives you the circumference of the earth to within a centimeter given its diameter), and easily looked up.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Lawyer: Mr. Nahasapeemapetilon, have you ever forgotten anything?
Apu: No. In fact, I can recite pi to 50,000 places. The last digit is 1.
Homer: Mmmm.... Pi.
You think that's funny? Then please explain to me why, for example, devoting your life to run 100 meters faster than any other human is not considered funny? Is it because the latter pays unbelievably well if you succeed? Laugh all you want but frankly, I don't see much of a difference...
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
I memorized i. People memorizing Pi and e are too irrational for my tastes.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Pft you memorized i? Come back when you memorize a real number.
Well, I also memorized 1/3. However, the competition has been going on for 73 days now, and I'm not sure I can keep going much longer.
What does it take to be number 1? Two is not a winner, and three no one remembers...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The last digits, according to the pi searcher, are 315921943469. Now you too can recite them -- just make up a lot of numbers in the middle and hope the judges get bored!
I'm a Japanese. Once in my junior high days (7th grade for you 'mericans), I got so bored with the math class that I decided to memorize Pi on the textbook. It had something like 47 digits. It took no time and during that 45 minutes session, I memorized it. I still seem to remember it.
:). Coming up with a mnemonic is kinda part of culture. The way I used to memorize pi was to cut it at every four digits and try to associate some kind of logic with each chunk. For example, 3.14 1592 6535 8979 3238 4626 each of four digit groups seems to have some kind of pattern, except the first one, no?
Curiously, the Pi World Ranking List had meny Japanese and Indian names. This is sort of understandable. Both cultures used to emphasize on memorizing texts for a long long time. Up until my grandfather's generation, being educated meant being able to recite the whole Confucius, and some other assorted Chinese classics. In my schooldays, too, we were forced to memorize bunch of stuff that turned out to be useless (pi was not one of them though
In India, too, traditional education for Brahmins started as memorizing the Veda transmitted to their family. There still are some people who can recite a whole Veda. Those people tended to memorize other stuff as well.
Probably for the Japanese and Indians, memorizing some long strings that don't make sense is not that a strange thing.
By the way, I am a Sanskritist, not a mathematician.
Anyone have an MP3 of the event?