Venkatesh

Piphilology

There are many ways to memorize π, including the use of piems

(a portmanteau, formed by combining pi and poem), which are

poems that represent π in a way such that the length of each word

(in letters) represents a digit. Here is an example of a piem:

How I need a drink, alcoholic of course [or, in nature] after

the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics. Notice how

the first word has 3 letters, the second word has 1, the third has 4, 

the fourth has 1, the fifth has 5, and so on. The Cadaeic 

Cadenza contains the first 3834 digits of π in this manner. However,

piems prove inefficient for large memorizations of pi. 

Other methods include remembering patterns in the numbers

(for instance, the year 1971 appears in the first fifty digits of pi) 

and the method of loci (used to memorize π to 65,536 digits).

Piphilology comprises the creation and use of mnemonic

techniques to remember a span of digits of the mathematical constant 

π.

The word is a play on Pi itself and the linguistic field

of philology. Even before computers calculated π, memorizing

a record number of digits became an obsession for some

people. The current Guinness-recognized record for remembered

digits of π is 67,890 digits, held by Lu Chao, a 24-year-old

graduate student from China. It took him 24 hours and 4 minutes

to recite to the 67,890th decimal place of π without an

error. On October 3, 2006 Akira Haraguchi reportedly was able

to recite the first 100,000 decimal places of π. On June, 17th,

2009 Andriy Slyusarchuk, a Ukrainian neurosurgeon, medical doctor

and professor, claimed to have memorized the first 30 

million places of π. Although he did not recite the entire 30 million

digits that he claims to have memorized, he was reportedly

able to recite any randomly selected sequences from the 30 million digits.

Mr. Slyusarchuk was officially congratulated on 

setting a new world record by thePresident of Ukraine 

Viktor Yuschenko. This record and his previous record of memorizing 

1 million digits of Pi in 2006 has been recognised as a world record by

Ukrainian Book of Records.