National Pi Day
Today, 3/14, is National Pi Day. For obvious reasons. (Well, unless you live in a country where today’s date is represented by 14/3, in which case it might not be so obvious.) I heard some info about Pi Day on the radio on the way to work today, and it reminded me of how much I was into pi as a kid.
You see, back then, things were different. For example, I had a slide rule, and aspired to an even better one. Dad’s slide rules, which he used in his job as a Boeing engineer, had real glass in them, but mine was a plastic cheapo from a shop at brand-new Southcenter Mall. Mine had the standard C and D scales (log scales, for multiplication and division), and the A and B scales used for square roots, but I wanted one with all the more esoteric scales, for calculating cube roots and tangents, sines and cosines, and other fun numbers.
But one thing my slide rule couldn’t do was calculate pi, at least not to any significant degree of accuracy. So I memorized pi. First I memorized the first 10 digits or so, and I recited it for Dad one evening when he came home from work. He continued from where I left off, adding another 20 digits or so. Crushed, I hit the books and soon knew 100 digits.
Then I read, in the Guiness Book of World Records, that the record for memorizing pi was 700 digits. I can beat that, I thought. Soon I was up to 200 digits, and the record was up to over 1000 digits. No problem, I thought, I can kick it up a notch and smoke these guys. I’m young, I’ll add a hundred digits every few months, and by the time I’m 30 I’ll be king of the pi-memorizing jungle.
Then in 1975, some Canadian geek named Simon raised the bar: he memorized 4000 digits. Enough, I thought, I have better things to do. I stopped practicing, and settled for knowing the first 100 digits, which I’ve hung onto ever since. These days, I sometimes recite it to myself when I want to clear my mind, like a little meditative chant.
The official record is now over 40,000 digits, and a Japanese man unofficially recited over 80,000 digits from memory last summer. Makes me feel quite normal, to hear about guys like that!
In celebration of National Pi Day, I’m going to recite the first 100 here, just for fun …
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
58209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
Happy Pi Day!
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 8:39 am. You can subscribe to comments on this post through its RSS feed.
on March 14, 2006 at 11:17 am Scott wrote:
Just when you think you know someone, you learn he can recite 100 digits of pi. Tell me again why you aren’t in charge of the planet?
on March 14, 2006 at 11:28 am Doug wrote:
Because this little trick isn’t valued very much on this planet, I guess. Instead, our society values stuff like sound financial judgment and long-term thinking, all the things I never studied as a kid.
I was really hoping it would come up at my Microsoft interview, but that didn’t happen. You know, “tell us what you know about pi” … instead, the questions were all about modern computer technology. Sigh.
on March 14, 2006 at 2:39 pm Megan wrote:
He uses the pi thing on first dates, too - with great success, as you can probably imagine!
on March 14, 2006 at 7:06 pm Doug wrote:
Most girls have never heard that line. Their loss.
on March 14, 2006 at 7:08 pm nick wrote:
I thought Doug just forgot the E at first.then I realized what he was talking about,I’m good to 3.14 thats it…
on March 15, 2006 at 12:12 pm Scott wrote:
Hmmm….the way to a woman’s heart is clearly pie….er…..pi.
on March 16, 2006 at 10:26 am Tom wrote:
(music swells …)
Doug, did you ever know that you’re my hero? Not because of the pi thing - that’s just kind of creepy. But the fact that you had the balls to try it on a first date … that’s a level of confidence in your own ability to spin your own odd abilities that I wouldn’t even try to match.
You, sir, ARE the wind beneath my wings.
on March 16, 2006 at 10:29 am Tom wrote:
Okay, I admit it. Upon further consideration, I’m just jealous. I’ll get to memorizing …
Hey, Phi is pretty cool, too - there’s a whole book about it (probably several, actually) that became quite popular for a while after The DaVinci Code came out. It’s by Mario something-or-other.
on March 18, 2006 at 8:40 am Chris wrote:
Doug as a maths student I feel decidely non-geeky now. Thanks!
on March 18, 2006 at 5:09 pm Doug wrote:
Aw shucks, Tom, it wasn’t balls, it was desperation. After Megan said “the shaved head is the comb-over of our times, the latest way to hide male pattern baldness” I felt I had nothing to lose. (She really said that, although I think it was the 2nd or 3rd date.)
Gee, don’t get me started on Phi. Love that number, too. The fact it’s reciprocal and it differ by exactly 1 (.618 vs. 1.618) is just the beginning … have you ever seen how to find it in the spiral of a conch shell? Or how the Fibonacci series approximates it?
Hey, is that what “DaVinci Code” is all about? I may have to actually read it.
on March 20, 2006 at 8:16 am Scott wrote:
OK…now you’re just taking all the fun out of conch shells.
on March 27, 2006 at 12:54 pm Lily wrote:
for pi day i memorized 240 digits after 3. in two days and i’m only in 8th grade
on March 28, 2006 at 12:07 am Doug wrote:
Awesome, Lily!
Stick with it. I had 200 digits around your age, and then I fell for that whole “balanced life” routine, and the next thing you know I’m old and bald and struggling to hang on to a measly 100 digits. So tell your parents that everything else can wait — memorizing pi comes first. Good luck.
But seriously, that’s cool.
on March 29, 2006 at 2:01 pm Tom wrote:
Pick up the Da Vinci Code - it will probably disappoint you a bit in terms of the depth of the mathematics, but there’s a very long explanation of Phi (which is why I bought the other book in the first place) and the conch shell and so forth. He’s also worked the Fibonacci sequence into the mystery itself. Kind of kicky - much brainier than most mysteries, but still probably not up to your or Lily’s level of mathematical prowess.
As for Megan’s proclamation, I will choose to ignore that (hi, Megan!). I shaved my head again about two hours ago. I do it by choice, man, by choice.
on April 26, 2006 at 12:26 pm ANDY wrote:
I remberized 50 digits of pi AND I’M IN 5TH GRADE.
on April 26, 2006 at 12:30 pm Doug wrote:
Cool, Andy! You and Lily are restoring my faith in modern math education.
on April 26, 2006 at 2:23 pm Sam wrote:
Hi I’m Andy’s friend and I started memorizing pi four at a time. So he thought it was cool and started memorizing Pi, too. I now know 51 digits of pi. and I’m 10 and in 5th grade!!!
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510
on April 26, 2006 at 2:29 pm Sam wrote:
My teachers don’t even know as many digits as I do (They actually know very little). I haven’t asked my math teacher how many she knows yet. Andy and I plan to ask her tomorrow morning.
on April 26, 2006 at 4:19 pm Doug wrote:
Yeah, teachers never seem to get into memorizing pi. I don’t know why.
So you know 51 and Andy knows 50, eh? Sounds like a heated competition. Just to help you pull even further ahead … the 52nd digit is 8.
on April 27, 2006 at 4:44 am Sam wrote:
Is the 52nd digit 8 or 5? And it is a “Heated competition.”
on April 27, 2006 at 4:49 am Sam wrote:
I just did research on like 30 different sites, and the 52 digit is 5, but the 53 digit is 8.
on April 27, 2006 at 7:19 am Doug wrote:
Hmm, maybe we’re counting differently. I’m counting from the decimal place, so the first 100 digits look like this …
1415926535
8979323846
2643383279
5028841971
6939937510
5820974944 (digits 51-60, with 8 at digit 52)
5923078164
0628620899
8628034825
3421170679
on April 27, 2006 at 12:09 pm ANDY wrote:
Our math teacher knew very little. I actually know about 74 know by the way.Your cool Doug.Thank you for having a whole web page on pi.
on April 27, 2006 at 2:59 pm Sam wrote:
OK, I count the 3 as a digit but not the point. I’m might have more digits by tomorrow.
on April 27, 2006 at 3:02 pm Sam wrote:
Most people in my grade only know 3.14, but some know a little more. (I meant I not I’m in my previous comment). I have to go read by.
on April 30, 2006 at 6:16 am Sam wrote:
C\D=3.14159265358979323845264338327950288419716939937510582097494459…
on April 30, 2006 at 11:15 am Doug wrote:
Go Sam and Andy! It’s fun to see you guys so into pi.
So I just got married, that’s why I’ve been off the blog for a couple days. And now I’m going away on the honeymoon, so may not be on the blog for a few days.
I told people at the wedding about you guys. Really. So it was great to see your comments today. Take care …
on May 8, 2006 at 2:57 pm Sam wrote:
I LOVE PI!!!
on May 8, 2006 at 3:00 pm Sam wrote:
I bet you don’t know how many bytes are in a kilobyte, how many kilobytes are in a megabyte, how many megabytes are in a gigabyte, and how many bytes are in a gigabyte!!!
on May 8, 2006 at 3:22 pm Doug wrote:
Hey Sam, I’ll try …
1024 bytes in a kilobyte
1024 kilobytes in a megabyte
1024 megabytes in a gigabyte
… and … 1024*1024*1024 …
1,073,741,824 bytes in a gigabyte!
on May 10, 2006 at 4:12 am Sam wrote:
Wow!!! Well I now know about 75 digits of pi I haven’t really counted.
on May 15, 2006 at 5:33 pm Sam wrote:
I’m tryin to memerize the Constitution of the United States now.
on May 17, 2006 at 8:25 am Doug wrote:
Go, Sam, go! There’s a song that has the preamble to the Constitution (I think) in the lyrics … maybe a Pixies song or something? I’ll bet you can find it with a search or two.
on June 16, 2006 at 6:38 pm Sam wrote:
Yeah, Well I have memerized 100 digits of pi and the preamble, article one section 1, and the first paragraph of article 1 section 2.
on June 16, 2006 at 8:08 pm Doug wrote:
Go, Sam! Here, let’s recite together …
3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170679
For the preamble, you’re on your own.
on June 16, 2006 at 10:18 pm Doug’s World » Today’s Special Number: 7 wrote:
[…] Like all bloggers, I like to review my stats and see which threads are getting the most traffic. And this one — National Pi Day — is a doozy by my dismal standards. 35 comments! […]
on October 27, 2007 at 2:21 pm Bob wrote:
First 1000 digits
3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810975 6659334461 2847564823 3786783165 2712019091 4564856692 3460348610 4543266482 1339360726 0249141273 7245870066 0631558817 4881520920 9628292540 9171536436 7892590360 0113305305 4882046652 1384146951 9415116094 3305727036 5759591953 0921861173 8193261179 3105118548 0744623799 6274956735 1885752724 8912279381 8301194912 9833673362 4406566430 8602139494 6395224737 1907021798 6094370277 0539217176 2931767523 8467481846 7669405132 0005681271 4526356082 7785771342 7577896091 7363717872 1468440901 2249534301 4654958537 1050792279 6892589235 4201995611 2129021960 8640344181 5981362977 4771309960 5187072113 4999999837 2978049951 0597317328 1609631859 5024459455 3469083026 4252230825 3344685035 2619311881 7101000313 7838752886 5875332083 8142061717 7669147303 5982534904 2875546873 1159562863 8823537875 9375195778 1857780532 1712268066 1300192787 6611195909 2164201989
on March 14, 2008 at 11:07 pm Happy National Pi Day! | Doug’s World wrote:
[…] Ken and others have warned me, it’s National Pi Day again today, 3/14. It’s also the day we closed on our house. We signed papers and transferred […]