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Pi

Started by Khaos Feb 6, 2005 at 10:45 AM 31 replies 4.4k views

Original Post

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:45 AM

Pi Day is coming up, and our math department is having a contest. The winner gets to pick out a pie of their choice (strawberry rhubarb pie!!!!), and they also get a decent-valued Blockbuster card. I really want that pie, so I decided to start memorizing the digits. I've only invested maybe two hours total, and I have gone from barely knowing 3.141592 to knowing 110 digits perfectly. I am still going though. My goal is 314 digits. Does anyone else know this number to a good number of decimal places?

Coward

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:47 AM

Uh.

benryves

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:48 AM

3.1415926535897932384626433832795

Only what calc.exe gives me...

nick316

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:50 AM

I just round it to 3. It makes the calculations easier.

MonkeyInBlack

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:53 AM

Quote:
Original post by nick316
I just round it to 3. It makes the calculations easier.

Mathematicians all around the world will hunt you down for that comment [smile]

I know pi till 3.14 - Google knows it better

falkone

Feb 6, 2005 at 10:53 AM

Quote:
Original post by nick316
I just round it to 3. It makes the calculations easier.

It's people like you that cause space probes to crash. :P

Trap

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:00 AM

inches and feet make space probes crash not pi=3 ;)

kSquared

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:09 AM

I can recite the first five digits thanks to this handy nonsense rhyme:

"Cosine, secant, tangent, sine  Three point one four one five nine!"

I used to remember this rhyme, which gives the first thirty-one digits. The letters of each word in the poem correspond to the digits of pi.

"Sir, I bear a rhyme excelling             // 3. 14159  In mystic force, and magic spelling      //    26535 8     Celestial sprites elucidate           //    979       All my own striving can't relate    //    3 23846     Or locate they who can cogitate       //    26433 8        And so finally terminate.          //    3279  Finis."                                  //    5

edit: A google search on "pi mnemonic" gives more interesting results.

zix99

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:13 AM

3.141592653 .. that's all i can do from memmory. I want to know more, but it's not really important to me.

Good luck with your memmorzing it.
~zix~

MrEvil

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:14 AM

I know 65 digits. I was born the day after Pi approximation day.

higherspeed

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:20 AM

Mathematicians don't care if you round Pi to 3, it's no less accurate than rounding it to 100dp mathematically speaking. You never need more than 4 or 5 in engineering anyway, after that other inaccuracies dwarf the difference made by Pi imperfections.

Cold_Steel

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:28 AM

I don't believe in memorizing things like this. If a computer can calculate it in a couple of milliseconds, what's the point. I save room in my brain for better things, like the recipe for pie. Mmmmm, chocolate rum pie....*drools*

And I'll say it again, pi = 10 in base pi. There, two digits. That's easy to remember. The trick is converting it back to base 10.[wink]

cowsarenotevil

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:32 AM

Offhand I know 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592, which, conveniently, is a URL if you append .com to it. I used to know more since a teacher had it going around her wall and I just memorized it from seeing it there. I think I knew in the hundreds for a while when I actually tried to learn it.

thec

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:42 AM

8 years agi I practiced to know >100 decimals (ended in 108). I had one week to do this for a bet with my girlfriend at the time. The day after, approximally 12 hours later I presented with >100 decimals (they had a paper with them on it to proove it) and I won :-)

This was more of a dare-thing mostly, quite fun. And some of her friends stared at me for a while :)

Basicly I just practiced for a few hours, it took me about 15 minutes to learn the 30 first, and it doubled up for each 30.

Albert

Strife

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:52 AM

Quote:
Original post by MrEvil
I know 65 digits. I was born the day after Pi approximation day.

You mean you were born on the Ides of March?

Beware the Ides of March, Caesar.

Xtremehobo

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:54 AM

Quote:
Original post by Trap
inches and feet make space probes crash not pi=3 ;)

Noooooot true ;)

iam2cool4u

Feb 6, 2005 at 11:58 AM

I know this many:

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837297804995105973173281609631859502445945534690830264252230825334468503526193118817101000313783875288658753320838142061717766914730359825349042875546873115956286388235378759375195778185778053217122680661300192787661119590921642019893809525720106548586327886593615338182796823030195203530185296899577362259941389124972177528347913151557485724245415069595082953311686172785588907509838175463746493931925506040092770167113900984882401285836160356370766010471018194295559619894676783744944825537977472684710404753464620804668425906949129331367702...

[Edit by Yann: post was too long]

[Edited by - Yann L on February 6, 2005 12:58:56 PM]

tHiSiSbOb

Feb 6, 2005 at 12:24 PM

Scrolling to the right makes it seem like a road! [smile].

Neex

Feb 6, 2005 at 12:42 PM

Slightly OT, but thought you'd find it interesting:

A friend and I wrote a distributed pi-calculation program last summer. Our CS department has 100 Athlon XP 2400+ machines for student use, which we used for a few hours to calculate pi to 600,000 digits. He's recently optimised the algorithm so we should be able to reach a million fairly easily now.

Also, he found this statement somewhere:

"An expansion of pi to only forty-seven decimal places would be sufficiently precise to inscribe a circle around the visible universe that doesn't deviate from perfect circularity by more than the distance across a single proton."

Shai

Feb 6, 2005 at 12:54 PM

but what if you need the accuracy of a quark?

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