One Babylonian clay tablet from around 1900 BC, for example, demonstrated pi to be 3.125, while the Egyptian Rhind Papyrus from 1650 BC placed the number at 3.1605. The earliest written estimates for pi-which are within one percent of the true value- come from ancient Egypt and Babylonia, and date back nearly 4,000 years. The concept has been studied for thousands of years-with mathematicians gradually becoming more adept at approximating its true value. This fascination with pi is not just a modern phenomenon.
Their top honor goes to Rajveer Meena, from India, who recited 70,000 digits over the course of 10 hours in 2015. Japanese memory master Akira Haraguchi is the unofficial pi memorization record-holder: in 2006, he recited 111,700 digits of the constant, although Guinness World Records have not validated this attempt. The sequence 546 may be repeated many times in a row-this is likely at some point given that pi is infinite-but eventually this repetition will stop.ĭespite this, countless enthusiasts around the world have been inspired to try their luck at memorizing and reciting pi to as many digits as possible. Non-repeating in this sense means that no single sequence of digits-let's take '546' as an example-will ever be repeated forever. Pi-which can be found in nearly all areas of mathematics and physics-is a so-called mathematical constant, meaning however big or small the circle is, its value will always be the same-roughly 3.14159.īut pi is also what's called an irrational number-a "non-repeating" number with infinite value, or in other words, the numbers after the decimal place go on forever. Ostensibly, π is the 16 th letter of the Greek alphabet, but in mathematics it is used to represent a special number-the ratio of a circle's circumference (the distance around the edge of circle) to its diameter (the distance from one edge to another measuring straight through the center). But what exactly is π (pronounced like the word "pie"), and where did the concept originate? Today is Pi Day, an annual celebration of the famous mathematical concept that has fascinated people for millenia.