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Pi Recited to 100,000 Digits

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the three-point-one-what dept.

DiAmOnDirc writes "Akira Haraguchi, 60, needed more than 16 hours to recite the number to 100,000 decimal places, breaking his personal best of 83,431 digits set in 1995, his office said Wednesday. He made the attempt at a public hall in Kisarazu, just east of Tokyo. Haraguchi, a psychiatric counselor and business consultant in nearby Mobara city, took a break of about 5 minutes every one to two hours, going to the rest room and eating rice balls during the attempt, said Naoki Fujii, spokesman of Haraguchi's office. Fujii said all of Haraguchi's activities during the attempt, including his bathroom breaks, were videotaped for evidence that will later be sent for verification by the Guinness Book of Records."

56 of 335 comments (clear)

  1. Details by rjstanford · · Score: 4, Interesting

    More to the point (although you could infer it from the "newsworthiness" of the story): he did it from memory. Although I'd be surprised if anyone had ever even read out 100,000 digits of Pi but, then again, I've been surprised by stupid people. Also from the article, "In 2002, University of Tokyo mathematicians, aided by a supercomputer, set the world record for figuring out pi to 1.24 trillion decimal places." So:

    a) He's got a way to go; and
    b) Sagan not proven right yet, still no circle.

    I'm guessing there's no girlfriend, either, but the only evidence I have supporting this is that, well, this guy memorized 100,000 digits of Pi. C'mon...

    --
    You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    1. Re:Details by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 4, Funny

      "I'm guessing there's no girlfriend, either, but the only evidence I have supporting this is that, well, this guy memorized 100,000 digits of Pi. C'mon..."

      Yeah... I just love the guy posting on Slashdot about his assumption of some other guy not having a gf because of how he spends his time.

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

    2. Re:Details by Poltras · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Please explain to me how reciting a number to 100,000 digits is smart. Sure lot of memory, and I don't say he's not smart, probably does a good job as a consultant, but this act by itself is by no mean a proof of his intelligence. Now, he must be the only man who can remember (or not) the birthdays of his parents and girlfriends (if he has any)...

      --
      Of Code And Men
    3. Re:Details by iron-kurton · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hey, that's not fair. I'm posting on Slashdot, and married... to a real girl!

      --
      Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
    4. Re:Details by BJH · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, he's in his 50s, he's married, and his wife was there when he was reciting it.

    5. Re:Details by Psychofreak · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seconded. Happily hitched for 3 years and counting!

      Maybe we should do poll on the marital status/relationship status of Slashdot?

      Phil

      --
      Laugh, it's good for you!
    6. Re:Details by Plutonite · · Score: 5, Funny

      Pointless. CowboyNeal will obviously win.

    7. Re:Details by pilkul · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Now, he must be the only man who can remember (or not) the birthdays of his parents and girlfriends (if he has any)...
      Not necessarily. Memorizing large amounts of random information has more to do with effective mnemonic techniques and capacity for intense concentration than base retentive skill. If he doesn't concentrate on something, he still can forget it. I've heard from people who like to memorize decks of cards that it's a cool party trick but it's a good idea not to let your girlfriend know you can do it for just this reason!
    8. Re:Details by rjstanford · · Score: 4, Funny
      Um, he's in his 50s, he's married, and his wife was there when he was reciting it.


      So, you're saying that he probably does have a girlfriend?
      --
      You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
    9. Re:Details by ClickOnThis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Please explain to me how reciting a number to 100,000 digits is smart. Sure lot of memory, and I don't say he's not smart, probably does a good job as a consultant, but this act by itself is by no mean a proof of his intelligence.

      Consider that "intelligence" can be (mis)measured in many different ways. The classic measure is an IQ test, which arguably does measure one's depths of reasoning in various ways, but at the end of the day, an IQ test really just measures how good one is at doing IQ tests. There are other kinds of "intelligence". For example, Wayne Gretzky might score modestly on an IQ test, but on a hockey rink, he was a "genius" in terms of psychomotor skills.

      As other respondents have said, Haraguchi probably looks for patterns in the digits that he can associate with other memorable concepts, perhaps visual or aural, or both. I would argue that such an ability is indeed a form of intelligence, insofar as it does involve a higher form of mental activity -- a kind of "abstraction" of the perceived patterns of the digits into aggregates that are available for him to recall. I think it's similar to the kind of intelligence that a musician needs to memorize a piece of music.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    10. Re:Details by 1u3hr · · Score: 2, Interesting
      More to the point (although you could infer it from the "newsworthiness" of the story): he did it from memory.

      You could "infer" it from the meaning of the word "recite".

      recite. To repeat or utter aloud (something rehearsed or memorized).

    11. Re:Details by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Sagan not proven right yet, still no circle.


      Technically, since Pi is infinitely long and never repeats, any finite series of digits must appear at some point. The first 100 million digits of Pi, for example, contain most every 7-digit phone number. Of course, the longer the string you want to find, the further you have to go. But that's not really a problem.
    12. Re:Details by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Technically, since Pi is infinitely long and never repeats, any finite series of digits must appear at some point.


      Sorry that's a non sequitur. There are series which are (a) infinitely long and (b) non-repetitive but which nevertheless do not contain any possible (finite) sequence of digits, just consider the series 1 0 11 0 111 0 1111 0 11111 - look no repetition Ma but the subsequence '1337' (for example) does not appear anywhere.
    13. Re:Details by psymastr · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He's 60 fuck's sake. Why should he have a girlfriend? Nerd jokes are so American and so unfunny.

      --
      Improve at backgammon rapidly through addictive quickfire position quizzes: www.bgtrain.com
    14. Re:Details by sacrilicious · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Technically, since Pi is infinitely long and never repeats, any finite series of digits must appear at some point.

      Don't think that's true. Counter example: consider the stream of digits comprised of pi with all 7's removed. Still infinitely long and never repeating, but 7 never appears now.

      --
      - First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
    15. Re:Details by david_g17 · · Score: 3, Funny

      You try remembering 100k digits when you get to his age.

      You try remembering 1k digits right now.

      no problem. i have the first 100K digits memorized already... 1,2,3,4,5,6,7...
    16. Re:Details by jonadab · · Score: 2, Informative

      > Memorizing large amounts of random information has more to do with effective
      > mnemonic techniques and capacity for intense concentration than base retentive

      Innate ability does help, but mostly memorization is a learned skill.

      I should know. I'm heavily involved with a quizzing program -- not the random-trivia type of quizzing, but the sort where they give you a particular text to study for a few weeks and all the questions come from that text. Naturally the best quizzers memorize the whole material. At the national level, practically all of the quizzers memorize the entire material, and the best ones know things like how many times certain words are used. (I know several of these best quizzers personally. I happen to live in the North Central Ohio district, which takes first place in the nation more often than any other district in the program.)

      So as I said, innate ability helps, and especially it helps inherently somewhat brighter people to get "into" the program more quickly and get started more easily, but the quizzers who take home the trophies are not the ones who started out smartest; they're the ones who studied most and/or the ones who have been quizzing seriously for the most years. With *rare* exceptions, new quizzers don't start out memorizing. At first they read over the material every day and try to learn enough of it to answer some of the questions. Because certain sections of the material are designated for especial memorization, most quizzers eventually reach the point where they start memorizing at least those sections. After they've done a few, it gets easier. Nobody memorizes *all* of the memory sections the first time he memorizes everything. They start out with a few, and work their way up, until they're learning all of them. Like I said, it gets easier after you've done more of it. Once they reach the point of having memorized all of the memory sections, it's about a quarter of the whole material, so they start to realize then that they could just flat memorize all of it. In NCO we try not to put anybody on the district team (i.e., the team we send to nationals) unless they've reached the point where they're willing to seriously attempt that.

      The quizzing program doesn't just teach memorization (although the learning of the text is an important goal for pretty much everyone involved). Because the quizzers have to answer questions, not just recite, and because they have to *finish* the question before they can answer it (assuming the quizmaster didn't already finish it, which at the higher levels of quizzing he almost never does, because invariably the level of competition is such that the quizzers are off their lights before the question is half done), there are other kinds of mental activity as well.

      Incidentally, the quizzers in this program are kids and teens. I'm far too old to quiz these days, but I coach and I serve as quizmaster (i.e., ask the questions) and sometimes judge. I did quiz when I was younger, and I was on the district team in 1992.

      --
      Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
    17. Re:Details by suggsjc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So what you are saying is that intelligence is all around us, just sometimes we have to either look harder to find it or just redefine intelligence all together?

      Another example, some might have thought Earl was stumbling mindlessly drunk at the party last night, but had they looked closer they would have noticed that his intricatly placed footsteps were actually a plot of the first 18,000 coordinates of the Tau Dirichlet Series.

      --
      When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
    18. Re:Details by Morphine007 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That sounds almost as exciting as stabbing myself in the face with my pen.... repeatedly....

      --
      Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
    19. Re:Details by VanessaE · · Score: 2

      Ok then, if that's impressive, how about this: I am a girl, married (just over 5 months), and I actually post here!

  2. The name for that kind of chanting by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 5, Funny

    is "Transcendental Meditation".

  3. Pi is like so last year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Memorizing the digits of e is cool.

  4. I know pi to 100K places by sulli · · Score: 4, Funny
    Ain't got no grills, but I still wear braces ...

    Weird Al's got nothing on this dude.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  5. Re:White and Nerdy... by coso · · Score: 5, Funny

    All that work and he could have just asked Weird Al.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xEzGIuY7kw

  6. This is coming out as a DVD box set by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    With english/french/spanish 5.1 and DTS and will be released when Mr. Haraguchi finishes the commentary track.

  7. Rice by miskatonic+alumnus · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... going to the rest room and eating rice balls during the attempt

    I wonder how many digits of pi can be squeezed onto a piece of rice.

    1. Re:Rice by Gwwfps · · Score: 3, Interesting

      A whole ball could actually hold at least a few thousand digits if not more. In a lot of places in China (usually near tourist attractions), there are artists who write your requested messages on rice. After some googling, I could only find these two pretty bad photos. The first seems to be not as good as most I've actually seen, the second just shows an artist working. Another one can give one a real idea of what the masters can do: 42 US presidents on rice.

  8. He's using memory technique by zymano · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He's not memorizing like a regular person would.

    It's been talked about on slashdot before using some memorization technique association groups of numbers with memorable patterns.

    Don't ask me for links.

    1. Re:He's using memory technique by gkwok · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Poe, E.: Near a Raven encodes the first 740 digits of pi using word lengths as digits, while preserving the structure, story, and tone of the poem it is based on.

    2. Re:He's using memory technique by coobird · · Score: 5, Informative
      He's not memorizing like a regular person would. It's been talked about on slashdot before using some memorization technique association groups of numbers with memorable patterns.

      More specifically, he memorizes the digits by making a story, probably from the sound of the numbers.

      In Japanese, you can make a play on words by the sound of the numbers called goro-awase. For example, if there is a sequence of numbers such as "3341", it can be read as "sa-mi-shi-i" which means "sad". By having a series of these play on words, he can make up a story, which is much easier to remember than a sequence of numbers.

      If you're curious, here is the article (in Japanese) that mentions that the guy makes a story to memorize the digits.

    3. Re:He's using memory technique by Galvatron · · Score: 3, Interesting
      One of the oldest and most venerable general-purpose mneumonic techniques is called simply The Art of Memory, which basically involves memorizing a particular path through a particular building, and then populating that mental building with objects and symbols based on whatever one is trying to remember. In an age before cheap paper and writing utensils, this was very widely used, though rarely written about, and is likely responsible for much of the West's obsession with symbolism and dual meanings (the cournicopia as a symbol of plenty, Mars and Venus representing masculinity and femininity, the whole art of heraldry, the assignment to each saint of a particular profession, etc.). Indeed, Freemasonry, that most symbolic of institutions, owed some of its broad popularity, and its shift in focus from an operative guild to a speculative fraternity, to its connection with the Art of Memory.


      I imagine that this guy was probably using a more specialized mneumonic, like the Raven poem linked to by the guy above, but as the Wikipedia link mentions, many of those who perform great feats of memory do still use this. Let's admit it though: there is no extant trick which would make memorizing 100,000 digits EASY.

      --
      "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
    4. Re:He's using memory technique by BJH · · Score: 2, Informative

      He didn't do it this way; too ambiguous.
      He developed his own method, whereby each digit was assigned to a row of hiragana (e.g. 1 = anything from the ka line, 2 = anything from the sa-line, etc.) and built up a memorizable string of words using those sounds.

      Still means he had to memorize a 100,000 syllable story, though.

  9. At 60! by neatfoote · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It'll probably come out sounding patronizing, but I've got to say, I'm glad it was a 60-year-old who managed this. Our culture today is far too youth-centric-- hurray for older people proving they're capable of competing with and even outperforming the whippersnappers at feats of freakish, useless intellectual wankery.

  10. Re:Good Manners by commodoresloat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Actually, when he wasn't eating rice balls, his mouth was full of pi.

    OK, OK, I'm leaving, no need to shove....

  11. Easy way to remember pi to 8 decimal places by Fish+(David+Trout) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm sure we can all remember the first digit: 3, right?

    But it's all those digits (decimal places) that follows the 3 that we all have trouble remembering, right?

    So okay. Just memorize the following simple phrase:

        "I wish I could recollect pi easily today"

    The number of letters in each word are the first 8 decimal digits:

            1 4 1 5 9 2 6 5

    Thus PI is approximately: 3.14159265...

    Which should be <i>plenty</i> long enough for most calculations.

    The only hard part of course is remembering to use the word "recollect" instead of "remember". :)

    --
    "Fish" (David B. Trout)
    1. Re:Easy way to remember pi to 8 decimal places by Watson+Ladd · · Score: 2, Funny

      How I wish I could enumerate pi easily, since all these fucking mnemonics prevent recalling any of pi's sequence more simply!

      --
      Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
    2. Re:Easy way to remember pi to 8 decimal places by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Informative

      I can easily remember pi up to that precision. My first "good" calculator had as 3.1415927, and I thought that was pretty odd, because Commodore 64 had one more decimal place: 3.14159265.

      And you could type the pi symbol in C64, and it served as the constant's name. Haven't figured out how to do that in PC, aside of setting kb layout to greek, which is kind of complicated... =) (Argh, Slashcode seems to filter &pi;, too. Welcome to year 2006, character sets are still a big problem in computing!) And people are complaining about proposed Unicode operators in Perl 6 - heck, in Commodore 64, not only we had non-ASCII operators (up-arrow for exponents), we had non-ASCII constant names, for pi! Er, PETSCII constant names. =)

      I just tried to remember more decimal places than that. I guessed "3542", but apparently I got the last two wrong (should be "89"), I can't possibly guess why, as I'm not that huge fan of Douglas Adams and I'm running out of ideas besides that. Ah...

  12. 100,000 digits is nothing... by Nahor · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...I'm currently at 1,135,972 digits for 1/3. Also, I already finished reciting all the digits for 1/2.

    1. Re:100,000 digits is nothing... by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Funny
      Also, I already finished reciting all the digits for 1/2.
      1/2 huh?
      Good luck with 3/4.
      It's twice as long!
      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    2. Re:100,000 digits is nothing... by gkhan1 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Umm, no it doesn't. 0.5 is 1/2, just like 0.50 or 0.500. It only contains 1 decimal place. Think of the number 7. You could call that number 07.0, but that doesn't make it any less correct to just call it 7

  13. Re:22/7 by Ruff_ilb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just remember 355/133 (3.1415929...). It's the most accurate fraction possible with only a three-digit numerator and denominator. (WP)

    --
    http://www.TheGamerNation.com/Forums
  14. Brief unofficial translation of newspaper by patio11 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I saw this linked above by an AC. http://www.asahi.com/national/update/1004/TKY20061 0040185.html Its an article in the Asahi Shinbun about the feat. My brief non-literal translation follows (if its inaccurate, sorry in advance, for accurate translations you can pay me my hourly):

    "Using equivilence rules like 3 = sa [n.b. all numbers in Japanese have a variety of syllables which they can be read as -- thus, you can remember a phone number as roughly a two to three word phrase, like my bank being 555-GOT-MONEY], you can memorize the first N of the infinite digits of pi by constructing a story of sufficient length and memorizing that. His previous record was seven years ago.

    After reciting the 100k digits they were checked against a computer printout. Mr. Haraguchi then retired with his family. They brought him his favorite beer, which he proceeded to chug. He commented 'Its good that I was able to relax'*"

    * This is ambiguous in Japanese: my guess is he is referring to his ability to have been relaxed while reciting the digits, but eh, doesn't really matter either way.

    By the way: my back of the envelope math suggests 100k digits of pi would leave you with a Japanese text about a tenth as long as the Bible, give or take. So its neither impossible nor a mean feat to have memorized a text of that length.

    --
    Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
  15. Re:22/7 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just remember 355/133 (3.1415929...). It's the most accurate fraction possible with only a three-digit numerator and denominator.

    It's not that accurate: 355/133 = 2.66917... . I think maybe you meant 355/113.

  16. A public performance? by Toxicgonzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    He made the attempt at a public hall in Kisarazu

    Did people actually go to watch this guy? What did they say to each other when he finished?

    "Hey, remember the part when he was all like 3, 5, 1, 7, 4, 4, 2, 5, 6, 6, 2, 1, 0, 4, 5, 7? That was wicked sick"
    "Yea, yea, and then he followed it up with a 4, 2, 4, 7, 3, 1, 1, 5, 2, 2, 5, 9, 0, 2, 3 and I was like ROCK ON Akira, ROCK ON"

  17. Hrm, e. by eingram · · Score: 2, Funny

    And I thought I was cool for reciting e to 50 decimal places in calculus class last year. ownt ;\

  18. Re:Videotaped? by Da3vid · · Score: 4, Funny

    Maybe he'll get the world record for most video recorded bathroom breaks in a row by a 60 year old man. When was the last time anyone checked out the Guiness Book of World Records? Those are the types of records they're looking for.

  19. Re:22/7 by RobRyland · · Score: 2, Informative

    actually, that is the most accurate fraction with a denomenator 10,000. When you go to 5 digit denomenators the best is 312689 / 99532 with 6 digits : 3126535 / 995207 with 7 digits : 5419351 / 1725033 with 8 digits you hit the magic 245850922 / 78256779. the error is -7.8179366199075e-17 so the difference is zero in double precision arithmatic. -Rob

  20. Do you know... by SirBruce · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do you know the history of psychiatry?

    Bruce

  21. Re:That's very impressive... by rolfwind · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sure, Olympic Runners can run fast, but what is the point? Any car made in the last 100 years can go faster.

    Sure, in the days of hunting/gathering, it was a vital skill. Transportation, for me, is a means to an end, but if you have no place to go, why even bother with it at all?

  22. Better than e! by NotQuiteReal · · Score: 4, Funny

    i can recite the value for SQRT(-1)!

    --
    This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
  23. Obligatory by pookemon · · Score: 2, Funny

    Mmmm pi...

    --
    dnuof eruc rof aixelsid
  24. Forget it's pi.... by Starker_Kull · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...I can't imagine memorizing 100,000 ANYTHING. Most people know about 25,000 words, 1,000 or so people, etc. - there is a certain amazement at what the human mind is capable of. Can you imagine if he memorized 100,000 faces and names? 100,000 cities and populations? It is astonishing how much information we can learn...

  25. Just 1 digit more accuracy ... how about 3 or 4 by Skapare · · Score: 5, Interesting

    OK, so you really meant 355/113. The value of that fraction is actually accurate to 7 digits, which is 1 digit more than how it is expressed in whole fraction form. But if you look further, you can find a fraction that has an accuracy that is 3 digits more than the total number of digits in the fraction. That fraction is (with digits chopped so it doesn't get mangled in Slashdot HTML):

    1901870728 5669230760 9014394471 4770339621 5907683135 4633719252 6115562704 3396809635 6432000780 8107929370 2997523451 8768883574 1387003036 8533612856 7115805986 7702399073 2279944269 0522019469 9766118756 0590556190 3648850292 8002591

    ... divided by ...

    6053842551 4642032610 2361023215 9405317163 9147815034 5020739231 2531721347 4068823247 6946000058 7137745497 9656144746 8267746412 8740227175 4410094658 7144148739 6268034351 3347328160 6663121381 1257617460 3015134435 3855924025 288111

    That's 217 numerator digits and 216 denominator digits for a total of 433 digits that gives PI to 436 digits. It doesn't get any better until a fraction with 14593 digits in both numerator and denominator for a total of 29186 digits that gives PI to an accuracy of 29190 digits, 4 more digits than in the fraction.

    But 355/113 is easier to remember and 355/133 is apparently easier to type :-)

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
  26. Re:to paraphrase a great mind... by nacturation · · Score: 2, Funny

    And to paraphrase the bible, "3 ought to be enough pi for anyone".

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
  27. Re:White and Nerdy... by Propaganda13 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Choice: Watching a 16 hour video of a guy reciting Pi or turning in my geek status.

    Answer: Guess I'm no longer a geek

  28. Re:Forget it's pi....(phbbbt) by gosand · · Score: 2, Funny
    ...I can't imagine memorizing 100,000 ANYTHING.


    I can recite whole numbers from 0 to 100,000. Maybe more. Does that impress you? :)

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.