Some quirky facts about π
Memorising Pi
From time to time, competitions are organised to see who can remember the most digits of π.
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Most of us can remember 3.14 or maybe a little more, but the world record holder, Rajveer Meena from India managed to recite 70,000 digits in 9 hours and 27 minutes on 21st March 2015.
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A Japanese man has claimed to have memorised 100,000 digits but his attempt has not been officially verified.
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The pursuit of memorising digits of π even has its own name - ‘Piphilogy’.
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π is an ideal number for memory competitions as there are no patterns in its digits that would help people to memorise figures.
A π cake baked to celebrate π day
Sci-Fi Pi
In the Star Trek episode, “Wolf in the Fold”, Spock defeats an evil computer by requesting that it calculates the final digit of π...
Happy Pi Day!
Every year, on 14th March many mathematicians celebrate "π Day". This is because the date 3/14 resembles 3.14. (Note that this date uses the American style of placing the month before the day).
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Events start at 1:59 p.m. making ‘3.14159’ , and include parades, π singing and memory contests.
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Also, make sure you look out for ‘π Approximation Day’ on the 22nd July of each year.
Can you see why this date is chosen?
Poetic Pi
People often use clever methods to help them remember the digits of π.
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For example, the sentence ‘May I have a large container of coffee beans’ helps us to recall the first 8 decimal places of π.
Can you see how it helps?
Personal Pi
Web based Pi pages allow you to quickly search for any sequence of numbers within the digits of π.
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If you wish to find your birthday, telephone number or even your name within π, then this is the place to go.
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We were surprised at how soon the string of digits ‘999999’ appeared!
Why Pi?
Although Leonhard Euler popularised the use of the symbol π for the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle, it was used earlier by Welsh mathematician William Jones.
….and finally
The famous scientist Albert Einstein was born on π Day in 1879.