Wednesday Is Pi Day 282
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.
I live in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, why?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh OK. I always use YYYY-MM-DD
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, it pisses others off.
Frankly, I don't see the fuss. I rarely know what year it is, let alone month or day. Time's such a bore.
Tom
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mmm my first rational thought of 2002... yipee!
Tom
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm a Aussie so DD/MM/YYYY is what I normally use.
Re: (Score:2)
The ISO format is arguably the most sensible, since it follows the ordering of number systems as well, and hence plays well with list sorting. Of course the European date DD/MM/YYYY has an internally ordered logic, but in a way it's as stupid as listing prices in cents.euros.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...or listing domain names as science.slashdot.org instead of the logical order org.slashdot.science.
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Informative)
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...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Many US government forms in fact use the DD-MM-YYYY format. If you're flying into the US and are filling out immigration-related forms and hear a muttered curse word followed by the sound of a pen crossing out some numbers at the bottom and rewriting, realize
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Britain originally used day, month, year, then for a short while used month, day, year, and finally reverted to the original form (day, month, year) which was revived around 1900; the USA chose to remain with month, day, year, but did originally use day, month, year as the British did."
Interesting.
Re: (Score:2)
I also have a dentist appointment on today, the 12th of March, so even if French and Spanish are inflexible in their ordering, English is entirely neutral. (I'd argue that the December the 30th and December 30th sound a little abbreviated as they are missing the "of" conjunctive when spoken.) DD/MM/YYYY is the standar
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Trust Americans to associate everything in life with sport.
*ducks*
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
MM-YYYY-DD
DD-YYYY-MM
YYYY-DD-MM
While two of those are obviously plain daft, with the year separating month and date, the third is only as "illogical" as the US standard.
Re: (Score:2)
But that's a wild guess. Maybe Americans just want to have a Pi day? (Americans, mark your calendars for March 14, '15, at 9:26 (and make it 9:26 *PM* to really tick off the Europeans.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I live in Europe (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We can join in, we just need to redefine Pi as 1.43
Well, if you'd be willing to take King George off our hands, he's become quite good at redefining science, so I'm sure he could make that change for you.
Look for a Pi Throw Near You! (Score:2, Informative)
Re: You forgot: european format is yyyy.mm.dd (Score:2, Interesting)
ISO date - ignore the year (Score:2)
Ignore the year and you have 3-14
Not a huge stretch from taking the year off 3/14/2007.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
To Celebrate.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:To Celebrate.... (Score:5, Funny)
3.14159265*2.71828183
That would be the diet version, only 8 significant digits
Re: (Score:2)
At least in a case insensitive world.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Except those pie aren't square; pie are round.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps a typo? (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Perhaps a typo? (Score:5, Funny)
Me too. Then I could use it for something useful.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perhaps a typo? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
naah, reciting a milliopns digits of pi is easy. the trick is, not to begin at the beginning....
dave
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps this kind of counselor ;) (Score:4, Funny)
Well, it's one kind of counselling...
Crazyness (Score:3, Funny)
That's just plain crazy!
Re:Crazyness (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Crazyness (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Obligatory quote (Score:3, Funny)
In rhymes inapt the great
Immortal Syracusan rivaled nevermore
Who in his wondrous law
Passed on before
Left men his guidance
How to circles mensurate
Continuing to 100000 or so is left as an exercise to the reader.
The joke is that in writing this out I have to remind myself, as a non-American English user, that "rivaled" is spelt like that, and to do that I have to recite the numeric value of pi up to that point...go figure
Re:Obligatory quote (Score:4, Informative)
One common mnemonic (which I've seen attributed to Isaac Asimov) is "How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!" If you want to get really fancy, the Wikipedia entry lists a full sonnet, in more-or-less iambic pentameter:
Now I defy a tenet gallantly
Of circle canon law: these integers
Importing circles' quotients are, we see,
Unwieldy long series of cockle burs
Put all together, get no clarity;
Mnemonics shan't describeth so reformed
Creating, with a grammercy plainly,
A sonnet liberated yet conformed.
Strangely, the queer'st rules I manipulate
Being followéd, do facilitate
Whimsical musings from geometric bard.
This poesy, unabashed as it's distressed,
Evolvéd coherent - a simple test,
Discov'ring poetry no numerals jarred.
Admittedly, it's not a very good sonnet, but, hey, what do you want?
To remember pi, just memorize this post! (Score:3, Funny)
I can't mod this up, sadly (Score:2)
To be fair, the mnemonic I quoted was the only one that actually refers to pi indirectly in the text - because, for the classically challenged, the "immortal Syracusan" is Arximedes who identified the invariance of pi. However, the version in your link is impressive, though as literature it sucks badly and the author obviously needs to get a life.
The mnemonic that most clearly reflects its purpose is, I think
How I wish I could recollect of circle round
The exact relation Arc
monopodal Monopoly. (Score:2)
Name that (probably inaccurate) quote.
100000 digits? (Score:2)
I don't think the total would be more than a thousand digits
How do they do it?
Re:100000 digits? (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/ [worldmemor...onship.com] or http://www.worldmemorychallenge.com/ [worldmemorychallenge.com].
If you want a tip, here's something a read in a book by a Norwegian memory world champion, Oddbjørn By:
*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!
Perhaps it is calculation, not memorization (Score:2)
Video tapes? Oooh , risky (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Mildly offtopic, but this is the first mention of the number of video tapes I could find.
24 hours and 26 video tapes implies that each tape contained slightly less than one hour of video. That doesn't make any sense at all - even on the highest recording VHS level, you still get 2 hours or so on each one.
Anyone have any idea?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They use a standard T120 http://www.high-techproductions.com/video1.htm [high-techproductions.com] and do indeed get 2 hours per tape in NTSC format.
But they're not crazy, so they have 2 recorders. For the first hour, they start both recorders. Starting with the second hour, they replace the first tape, leaving the first tape with only an hour. On the third hour, they replace the second tape. 4th hour, first tape again, etc, etc.
This leaves them with 26 tape
1337 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1337 (Score:5, Funny)
1:59 pm? (Score:3, Funny)
It can also be observed at 3:49 a.m., which is then 0.159 of a day; it's also much easier to have a minute's respectful silence at 3:49 am
Re: (Score:2)
on another note.. (Score:5, Funny)
This deep down? (Score:3, Funny)
Only on slashdot (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
BBC article say other numbers (Score:2)
They say:
"Akira Haraguchi, 59, managed to recite the number's first 83,431 decimal places, almost doubling the previous record held by another Japanese."
Do they really recite the digits of pi? (Score:2, Interesting)
I ask because when I was a child, I remember reading about the "reciting digits of pi" record in the family Guinness Book of Records. It had a photo of the then record-holder, standing in front of a chalk board, upon which was written "3.142857142857142857142857..."
It's not hard to recite the decimal expansion of 22/7.
Re: (Score:2)
He never said 22/ was an 'expansion of pi'. He said that the decimal expansion of 22/7 appeared on the blackboard in the photo. And I think he's right - I had the same book - green cover with a Chelsea Pensioner with loads of medals.
Ah, the evolution of math geekiness... (Score:3, Informative)
Interestingly, that fall in my frosh year at university, reciting pi turned up as a big contest among the first year math students. 2,500 was enough to take the crown at university also.
There is actually a very efficient way of memorizing strings of random digits one you get the hang of it - the key is groups of 5. The technique works well enough that 25 years later I still remember 500 digits. And the workout I gave my memory skills serves me well today still. Strings of digits are simple - tell me your phone number just once, etc.
100,000 - now that's impressive. I can tell you from experience, that memory will serve him well in chemistry, especially organic. More power to him!
Re: (Score:2)
Einstein's birthday... (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because we can?
Because he never remembers my birthday?
Because we would have had to know it in the first place to be able to remeber it?
huh? (Score:2)
Ok, which retarded state legislature is trying to redefine Pi as -11 now? Is there new Biblical evidence that those people who claim that Pi is exactly 3 were off by 14?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)