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Wednesday Is Pi Day

Posted by kdawson on from the secant-tangent-cosine-sine dept.

mrbluze points us to an AP writeup on the upcoming Pi Day — 3-14 (which some will observe at 1:59 pm). The article notes: "[T]he world record [for reciting the number Pi] belongs to Chao Lu, a Chinese chemistry student, who rattled off 67,890 digits over 24 hours in 2005. It took 26 video tapes to submit to Guinness," and mentions in passing a Japanese mental health counselor who last fall recited 100,000 digits, but did not choose to submit proof to the record book.

17 of 282 comments (clear)

  1. I live in Europe by Zouden · · Score: 5, Informative

    So I won't get a Pi day, you insensitive clod!

    --
    "A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
    1. Re:I live in Europe by Petrushka · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure you do. On the 31st of April :-)

    2. Re:I live in Europe by i_should_be_working · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah but the basis is wrong. You can't compare hours, days and months to a base 10 system. Real pi day should be (3.14159..)*(365.25/10)=114 (rounding down for effect) = 11th of March. Hey that's yesterday. Happy belated real pi day!

    3. Re:I live in Europe by pryonic · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I've never understood the logic behind the American way of writing dates. I'm not trying to troll here, it just seems illogical to me.

      Here at my office we use both the European and International numerican dates forms, depending on the sitation:

      European: DD/MM/YYYY
      International: YYYY/MM/DD

      As you can the units of time (days, months, years) ascend or descend in order e.g. in the European format you go from the smallest unit (days) through the midsized (months) up to the largest (years). In the International format the same descends from largest first.

      But with the American format you start with the month, then go to the smallest, then to the largest. It just seems totally illogical to me, anyone know why it's done that way?

      --
      Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
    4. Re:I live in Europe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      In Europe we can celebrate PI approximation day on 22 July (22/7).

    5. Re:I live in Europe by Saib0t · · Score: 5, Informative

      But with the American format you start with the month, then go to the smallest, then to the largest. It just seems totally illogical to me, anyone know why it's done that way?
      Probably because of the way they say the dates, "I have an appointment on March 14th" rather than "I have an appointment on the 14th of March".

      As opposed to, says, french "J'ai un rendez-vous le 14 mars" or spanish "tengo una cita el 14 de marzo". Might be the reason...

      --

      One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
    6. Re:I live in Europe by Asztal_ · · Score: 5, Funny

      No problem, you can celebrate pi day on 31415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751 058209749445923078164-06-28 :-)

  2. Perhaps a typo? by tehSpork · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...a Japanese mental health counselor who last fall recited 100,000 digits, but did not choose to submit proof to the record book.

    Shouldn't that read "Mental health patient ?"

    None the less, that is still very impressive. I wish I had a memory for that kind of thing. :)

    1. Re:Perhaps a typo? by neiljt · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wish I had a memory for that kind of thing

      Me too. Then I could use it for something useful.

  3. Re:To Celebrate.... by cabinetsoft · · Score: 5, Funny

    And of course, the best way to celebrate is to eat PIE!

    3.14159265*2.71828183

    That would be the diet version, only 8 significant digits

  4. Re:Crazyness by bad_fx · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seems quite irrational to me.

  5. Video tapes? Oooh , risky by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Can you image if he gets a mail from Guinness saying "Sorry , you missed the record by 10. Or at least we think you did but tape 26 got chewed by the machine at digit 54166. Bad luck son, try again next year and next time use Memorex!"

  6. 1337 by HetMes · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Following the discussion about the date/time format, in continental Europe we proud ourselves in experiencing 13-3-7, or 1337...

    1. Re:1337 by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Funny

      I've never used just 7 to denote the year 2007. However, Europeans can experience 13:37ness every day thanks to our 24-hour clock.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  7. Re:100000 digits? by fLiXUs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There are plenty of memory techniques. Didn't you know there is a world championship in remembering things? See for instance http://www.worldmemorychampionship.com/ or http://www.worldmemorychallenge.com/.


    If you want a tip, here's something a read in a book by a Norwegian memory world champion, Oddbjørn By:

    1. Assign each 2 digit number to a person and an action related to that person. The person has two names, so the first character of each name represent one of the digits.
    2. Now you can represent 4 digits with a person and an action. This will give you 4 with different first characters.
    3. Imagine locations on a known path.
    4. Assign a person doing an action at each location.
    5. Now you have 4 digits per location on your path... Just make a very long path and you'll have 1,000,000 digits (250,000 locations*) in no time!
    6. To recite the number, just traverse your path and look at the name of the person in each location, and the name of the person associated with the action.



    *You probably want less locations, so you can visit the same one under different conditions. E.g. during day / night / rain / snow / heavy winds... we're down to 50,000 locations already!

  8. on another note.. by mrsym0r · · Score: 5, Funny

    I feel it's only appropriate to add that march 14th is also international steak and blowjob day

  9. Re:Crazyness by suffe · · Score: 4, Funny

    You're imagining things.

    --

    Karma: 2.71828182846 (Mostly due to small, fun pills)