Stretching The Pi
OPEN: JANUS FILE #0382
To one and all, a Happy Pi Day! Or a Happy Albert Einstein's Birthday, if you prefer to celebrate the day that way. And if by any chance someone reading this has applied to the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, may you be receiving good news this day.
Last year, I mentioned that I really didn't have anything new to write about pi, or Pi Day. Well, things are a little different this year.
It goes back to Christmas. My brother and sister-in-law gave me a pi plate for Christmas this past year. Yes, you read that right -- a pi plate. It’s an off-white ceramic pie plate with blue printing. In the center of the plate is a lower case pi. (This is important -- in mathematics, the upper case pi means something altogether different.) Spinning away from the pi in a spiral is the numeric value of pi -- 3.14159265358979, et cetera, ad infinitum (et ultra!).
As I have mentioned in previous entries, I have memorized the value of pi to 35 decimal places. After receiving the pi plate, I have been inspired to extend that memorization just a little further. Though at the moment, I'm really not certain how far I want to go.
I can state that, so far at least, I have added another 10 places to my memorization, making it a total of 45 decimal places. If you're curious, that would be:
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399
And yes, I did type that from memory.
I'm getting close to making that 50 places. I'm pretty certain that the next five digits in the sequence are 37510, but right now, I would have to consult my pi plate or some other reference source to confirm.
When I had memorized pi to only 35 places, I used the song "Memory" from the musical Cats as a mnemonic aid. I sing the digits to the tune: "Memory . . . three point one four one five nine . . . " I reached 35 digits at the end of one verse, so that's why I stopped where I did. I've decided that I need another mnemonic tune, though.
Right now, I'm working on using "The History Of Everything" by The Barenaked Ladies as my new memory aid. If you don't recognize the song, it's the theme song to the TV series The Big Bang Theory. I've been doing a little counting, and if I'm not too mistaken, using the tune for the first verse of the song (which is what you hear each week at the beginning of The Big Bang Theory) will take me to 70 digits.
Why that particular song? Well, I think you will all admit that memorizing pi is something of a geeky thing to do. What better song to use than the theme song from a TV series where most of the major characters are ubergeeks?
I'm just having one slight problem, though. "Memory" is a slow to moderately paced song. It was easy to fit the digits into the rhythm of the song. "The History Of Everything," on the other hand, has a much more rapid pace. Even with the digits I have already thoroughly memorized, I find myself stumbling trying to sing them to the tune. It's definitely a matter of pacing. I've also tried singing pi to the tune of "The Major General's Song," and I have found myself stumbling more than a few times with that tune as well. I can handle the tune without any problem; after all, it was also the tune for "The Elements," which I memorized several years ago. A series of numbers seems to have a slightly higher degree of difficulty to fit to a fast-paced tune than just words.
One way or the other, I think I will stretch my memorization to at least 70 decimal places. (And to be absolutely clear, this is after the decimal point.) I like to think that for someone with my gift for memorization, it should be as easy as . . . pi.
[SIDENOTE: I just checked the entry for pi on Wikipedia. I was right on that sequence of digits, so I guess I have pi memorized to 50 places.]
CLOSE: JANUS FILE #0382
To one and all, a Happy Pi Day! Or a Happy Albert Einstein's Birthday, if you prefer to celebrate the day that way. And if by any chance someone reading this has applied to the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, may you be receiving good news this day.
Last year, I mentioned that I really didn't have anything new to write about pi, or Pi Day. Well, things are a little different this year.
It goes back to Christmas. My brother and sister-in-law gave me a pi plate for Christmas this past year. Yes, you read that right -- a pi plate. It’s an off-white ceramic pie plate with blue printing. In the center of the plate is a lower case pi. (This is important -- in mathematics, the upper case pi means something altogether different.) Spinning away from the pi in a spiral is the numeric value of pi -- 3.14159265358979, et cetera, ad infinitum (et ultra!).
As I have mentioned in previous entries, I have memorized the value of pi to 35 decimal places. After receiving the pi plate, I have been inspired to extend that memorization just a little further. Though at the moment, I'm really not certain how far I want to go.
I can state that, so far at least, I have added another 10 places to my memorization, making it a total of 45 decimal places. If you're curious, that would be:
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399
And yes, I did type that from memory.
I'm getting close to making that 50 places. I'm pretty certain that the next five digits in the sequence are 37510, but right now, I would have to consult my pi plate or some other reference source to confirm.
When I had memorized pi to only 35 places, I used the song "Memory" from the musical Cats as a mnemonic aid. I sing the digits to the tune: "Memory . . . three point one four one five nine . . . " I reached 35 digits at the end of one verse, so that's why I stopped where I did. I've decided that I need another mnemonic tune, though.
Right now, I'm working on using "The History Of Everything" by The Barenaked Ladies as my new memory aid. If you don't recognize the song, it's the theme song to the TV series The Big Bang Theory. I've been doing a little counting, and if I'm not too mistaken, using the tune for the first verse of the song (which is what you hear each week at the beginning of The Big Bang Theory) will take me to 70 digits.
Why that particular song? Well, I think you will all admit that memorizing pi is something of a geeky thing to do. What better song to use than the theme song from a TV series where most of the major characters are ubergeeks?
I'm just having one slight problem, though. "Memory" is a slow to moderately paced song. It was easy to fit the digits into the rhythm of the song. "The History Of Everything," on the other hand, has a much more rapid pace. Even with the digits I have already thoroughly memorized, I find myself stumbling trying to sing them to the tune. It's definitely a matter of pacing. I've also tried singing pi to the tune of "The Major General's Song," and I have found myself stumbling more than a few times with that tune as well. I can handle the tune without any problem; after all, it was also the tune for "The Elements," which I memorized several years ago. A series of numbers seems to have a slightly higher degree of difficulty to fit to a fast-paced tune than just words.
One way or the other, I think I will stretch my memorization to at least 70 decimal places. (And to be absolutely clear, this is after the decimal point.) I like to think that for someone with my gift for memorization, it should be as easy as . . . pi.
[SIDENOTE: I just checked the entry for pi on Wikipedia. I was right on that sequence of digits, so I guess I have pi memorized to 50 places.]
CLOSE: JANUS FILE #0382