Thread: How did I miss it?

Too busy doing other junk, I guess. A belated Happy Pi Day everyone!

Pi Day: How 3.14 helps find other planets, and more – Light Years - CNN.com Blogs

There is (or at least used to be) a ceremony on campus at CalTech and MIT at 1:59 pm. The fact that Albert Einstein was born this day just gives it all added panache. The fact that Billy Crystal, Kirby Puckett, and John Bear were also both this day is all the evidence one needs on the validity of astrology.

Originally Posted by John Bear

There is (or at least used to be) a ceremony on campus at CalTech and MIT at 1:59 pm.

And 26 seconds, I suppose?

When I'm feeling especially dorky and awkward in public, I might find myself trying to razzle my friends and acquaintances by rattling off pi to the 60th digit to the right of the decimal point. Since there is no way to prove my ability to do that on the internet, I'll just leave that out there and hope nobody questions it

As days go by, and I ponder my future to a greater extent, I find myself realizing that I like numbers about as much as I like languages. Looking back on this whole process, I really wish I had the time to reroute and find a way to double major in Mathematics and Linguistics. Not going to happen, so these two disciplines have gained themselves an autodidact I love the internet for allowing me to do that.

MC: When I'm feeling especially dorky and awkward in public, I might find myself trying to razzle my friends and acquaintances by rattling off pi to the 60th digit to the right of the decimal point.

JB: Hey, and I can recite the alphabet backwards even faster than forwards. We can be the hit of the DegreeInfo Convention.

Actually, my first published work was a very short bit in Scientific American, when I was 18. They had run an article on mnemonic sentences for remembering pi: first word with 3 letters, second with 1, third with 4, and so on. My response was (as best I recall it, but I haven't checked), "Why a chap, I query, scientist or layman, would take the time probably necessary finding sentences for pi, will always tax my cerebellum." They got it, and published it.

Originally Posted by John Bear

Actually, my first published work was a very short bit in Scientific American, when I was 18.

Further proof that your life is much more interesting than mine.

"Why a chap, I query, scientist or layman, would take the time probably necessary finding sentences for pi, will always tax my cerebellum."

That doesn't work... I suppose you don't quite remember it. Some mnemonic device, eh?

The word/letters = numbers mnemonic device isn't a system I favor. It would take me much more time and effort to remember the sentence than it would to just remember the numbers themselves. I prefer the mnemonic major system for memory athletics, although pi I have memorized by rote.

Originally Posted by John Bear

MC: When I'm feeling especially dorky and awkward in public, I might find myself trying to razzle my friends and acquaintances by rattling off pi to the 60th digit to the right of the decimal point.

JB: Hey, and I can recite the alphabet backwards even faster than forwards. We can be the hit of the DegreeInfo Convention.

My stupid human trick is that I can accompany myself musically by whistling one thing while humming something else.

Steve: "My stupid human trick is that I can accompany myself musically by whistling one thing while humming something else..."

John: While tapping out pi with the left foot and e with the right?

It is rather amusing to forget a mnemonic, isn't it. But I hadn't thought about it for about 50 years. Perhaps this:

Why a chap, I query, scientist or layman, takes the hours probably necessary finding sentences for pi (and hundreds most likely do) always will tax and irritate all my thought.

(Three numbers further and there's the first zero. How would we deal with that in a mnemonic?)