You are not alone.
Posted on 12/23/2006 7:03:15 AM PST by mathprof
Unless you're a mathematician or an engineer, pi probably ranks high on the list of things that are of little or absolutely no use in your life.
In fact, so marginal is the perceived importance of pi -- a number many remember from school only as "somewhere around 3.14, or roughly 22 divided by 7," but which is actually the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter -- that many schools in Japan even teach the value of pi as 3 to simplify the concept amid the plethora of math formulas, grammar rules and history facts that students must cram.
But for Akira Haraguchi, pi is more than just a vague figure or a mathematical concept -- like zero -- that proves itself vital to many calculations. In fact, he says the infinite series of numbers, which computers have calculated to more than 1 trillion digits without detecting any repetition or pattern, provides him with the source of epic novels and poems -- and even the answers to his lifelong spiritual quest.
Otherwise, why would anyone want to try to set a world record in reciting 100,000 digits of pi? That, however, is exactly what this 61-year-old retired engineer from Chiba Prefecture set out to do -- and accomplished -- during a 16 1/2-hour event in Tokyo in October.
All but the second of the four records for the number of pi digits he has so far recited in the presence of witnesses -- 54,000 in Sept. 2004, 68,000 in Dec. 2004, 83,431 in July 2005 and the 100,000 digits in October -- have been submitted for accreditation with the British-based Guinness World Records organization. To date, though, Guinness has neither confirmed nor denied his requests, he said.
The friendly, down-to-earth Haraguchi -- who peppers his speech with non-stop, rapid-fire (and, frankly speaking, marginally funny) jokes and puns (e.g.: "We need to learn kotsu [tricks] in our lives. . . . You know why? Because we are full of kotsu [bones]! But many of us have kekkan [faults] . . . because our body is full of kekkan [blood vessels]!) -- says he has always found pi fascinating.
"I had always felt that it was divine somehow," Haraguchi said recently at his home in Chiba. "In fact I was secretly chanting pi numbers at funerals, as if I were chanting a Buddhist sutra." Quest for eternal truth
Interestingly, Haraguchi says his interest in pi has a lot to do with his lifelong quest for eternal truth. Since childhood, he has always wondered why some people -- especially those with physical and mental disabilities -- suffer. He consulted religion and philosophy books for answers, but in vain. Then he turned to nature, and realized, he said, that nothing in nature -- be it leaves, trees or mountain scenery -- is linear or square. "I realized that nature is not made of straight lines. . . . And I realized that all things in the universe . . . rotate. Rotation became a key concept for me."
So when he learned that pi is an endless series of numbers with no pattern or repetition, it made perfect sense to him to take it as a symbol of life, he says -- adding that he now calls pi memorization "the religion of the universe."
So how does he do it? He has come up with his own way of assigning kana characters to each number. The number 0, for example, can be read as o, ra, ri, ru, re, ro, wo, on or oh; 1 can be a, i, u, e, hi, bi, pi, an, ah, hy, hyan, bya, or byan. The list goes on up to 9.
Combining these characters, he has created a myriad of stories and poems, including a story about the legendary 12th-century hero Minamoto no Yoshitsune and his sidekick Benkei, who was a Buddhist monk. In his January 2006 book titled "Bucchigiri Sekai Kiroku Hojisha no Kiokujutu (The Memorization Skills of a Whopping World-record Holder)," he explains that the first 15 digits of pi, which are 3.14159265358979, can be memorized as "saishi ikokuni mukosan kowakunaku" -- which roughly translates as: "The wife and children have gone abroad; the husband is not scared."
When he recites digits, he explains that he "simultaneously interprets" his linguistic creations back into numbers. Through years of practice at home, which he has done every night after dinner and a bit of sake, and which to him seems more like daydreaming than cramming, he has trained himself to recite up to five numbers per second, he said.
Surprisingly, despite his astounding memory, this father of a grownup son says he was neither a child prodigy nor a math genius in school. He even speaks of being given a "time out" by his teacher to stand to attention in the hallway as a punishment for failing so badly to memorize multiplication tables of one-digit numbers. Occasional lapses
Likewise, contrary to popular belief, Haraguchi says people's memory does not deteriorate with age.
"When you are young, you look at the sky and think it's a nice day. Then you might think, 'I might as well go driving.' When you grow older, however, you start observing the sunlight and its reflection on leaves. You develop the ability to imagine more, which helps you associate things. . . . A whole new different way of memorizing things becomes available when you get older."
But that does not spare Haraguchi himself from occasional lapses on such important occasions as his wife's birthday. "I remember her birthday very well -- except on the very day. Once I completely forgot about it, and wondered why we were going out to this expensive yakiniku (grilled beef) restaurant for dinner," he said with a laugh. But nevertheless, his memory has definitely improved since he started memorizing pi in 2001, he says. Before that, there were times when, just like some ordinary people, he would be watching a TV program and decide to look up something in a dictionary and go to another room to get it. But then, he says, by the time he got to the other room, he'd have forgotten what he was doing there. Such days, however, are long gone.
Now that he has set a record nobody will likely break for months or years -- if ever -- Haraguchi is shifting his focus to his other areas of interest, including language studies. He said he would like to master English, then Spanish and Italian and Chinese. All he needs to accomplish that, he says, is his brain -- and an English conversation textbook and a CD he picked up in a 100 yen shop.
"It's easy," he said with a smile, perusing a 2,667-page Japanese-language dictionary he also happens to be reading.
Indeed, for a man who has made a mind-boggling effort to memorize a math construct that most pay no attention to, having conversations with fellow human beings -- in whatever language -- should be easy as pie.
You are not alone.
Ummm, P'can Pi is my favorite.
Now that is pure geekiness!
LOL!
3.14159265358979
It is the volume of a sphere that is fascinating, fractions... the only math expression where nothing is ever lost, just difficult to pry loose from its partner(s).
In Dava Sobel's book, "Longitude" there is a sentence, "One might as well try to make sense out of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle."
This is an obvious editorial disfigurement of "One might as well try to rationalize pi." Why not "One might as well try to square the circle.", which means the same thing and will not confuse editors or other innumerates?
This is an example of why authors need to watch their editors very, very carefully.
e[pi]*i = -1
A more well-known equation is:
pi + e = Good Eatin'
Or the strength of a radar return from a ballistic missile warhead.
Star Wars wouldn't be possible without Pi.
GPS makes extensive use of Pi too.
I like my pi in 2s. This is rad. Like 2 pi rad.
And weather you realize it or not, the Universe is laughing behind your back.
There's a name for it....idiot savant....
e(i*pi)+1 = 0
This equation has the five most important constants in analysis in one compact equation!
And if the equation is slighlty modified to include 1 and 0 that gives two more important constants of the computer age.
No matter what you call it, this is going to look just super on somebody'e resume!
Clever.
But if you can recite all 100,000 numbers (and I am sure you can) is it because you really committed the entire sequence of numbers to memory or because you relied on an easily-remembered algorithm to enable you to recite the numbers sequentially?
This guy needs to get a life. But at 61 I guess it's too late.
Pi and Poe intersect:
http://users.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikerav.htm
Pi is also the name of a very strange movie.
Great book. My wife couldn't understand why (a) someone wrote a book on pi, and (b) why I was so engrossed with it. But she likes the money I bring home because I understand its importance (along with a few other constants...;^)
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