this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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[–] andybytes@programming.dev 1 points 12 hours ago

I don't remember if it was like ACT or whatever. I took it and I did terrible. I went to a class and they told me not to read the reading section, but just skim through it and grab key words. The the next time I did the test I did a pretty good job for my dumb arsre.

[–] andybytes@programming.dev 1 points 12 hours ago
[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 25 points 1 day ago (3 children)

If anyone is curious, I looked it up and The Guinness Book of World Records currently recognizes Rajveer Meena as the world record holder for Pi memorization. He recited 70'000 digits of Pi while blindfolded in about ten hours in 2015. I can't even begin to understand how someone could actually do that.

[–] AccountMaker@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 day ago

I memorized 100 digits some years ago using physical memory. I would type the digits of pi on the numpad and memorize the movements of my hand, how it feels and which button goes when by position. Then when I would have to recite it, I'd imagine a numpad, move my hand and just say the number that corresponds to the imaginary button I'm pressing.

Don't know if that could work for 70k digits though

[–] vaguerant@fedia.io 103 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This beats the approximations used in ancient Sumer (3.1065) and China (3). Try contacting their respective records bodies.

[–] Mikrochip@feddit.org 41 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Gotta say, using 3 just feels like giving up due to laziness, even in 1200BC.

Also it's interesting how the Chinese entries basically stop between 1400 and 1949, whereas European names are far more present during this era. Some Japanese ones, too. I wonder how comprehensive this page is.

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 39 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Rounding pi to 3 is just the engineering way. It's close enough to get the job done and then I don't have to worry about decimal places. However, using pi=3 typically undershoots your calculations, so personally I like to use pi=4

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I finally found you, an engineer actually using π=3 (or 4 as you say), and not just people making fun of it.

I am also an engineer, but I'm going to wager much more recently graduated (worked 3.5 years).

Who hurt you?

Like, I get it, in a world before calculators, but there's a button on the calculator, in your spreadsheet, in whatever program that approximates pi to many, many, many digits.

Putting in a design/safety margins into pi seems like a strange choice.

Sincerely, an engineer looking for answers on this π=3 meme.

Even if it's back of the napkin first past approximation. You have a phone calculator. Please use it for our collective peace haha

(All jibes in jest, I'm genuinely curious)

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Only 7 years of engineering experience and pretty much every time I have used pi, I have rounded it to 3 or 4. Now, the thing is, I am an electrical engineer that works in industrial automation. I never use pi at all

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

Thanks for the response! Still, why would you do this, and not just use pi?

I'm not following what the purpose of rounding pi is

PI() is the function a spreadsheet, if that helps ;)

Please give me peace haha

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 2 days ago (3 children)

An error margin of less than 5% (even better, biased in a known direction) is more than good enough for plenty of use cases.

An error margin of more than 25% on the other hand, is seldom acceptable.

[–] i_am_hiding@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago

One is an error margin, the other a factor of safety!

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 days ago

Nah, it's fine. Trust me I use pi=4 in every calculation I do that uses pi and I haven't ever run into any issues at all

(I'm not that type of engineer, I never do anything with pi)

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[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Doesn't have the famous

ln(640320³ + 744)/√163

for some reason. Accurate to 14 decimal places I believe which is more accurate than what you need for 99.9% of its applications.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So to avoid memorizing a 15-digit number you'll memorize a 13-digit equation?

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[–] moody@lemmings.world 12 points 2 days ago (5 children)

It's been said that with 15 decimals, you can calculate the circumference on the observable universe with a precision of the width of an atom.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 12 points 2 days ago

It's also been said that with Pi to just four decimal places you can accurately send a spaceship to one of our nearest neighbouring stars and arrive within one kilometre of your intended target.

In fairness, that was said by me, and I do tend to be full of shit.

[–] ODuffer@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not quite, according to JPL https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/how-many-decimals-of-pi-do-we-really-need/

15 decimal places, for Voyager 1 - We have a circle more than 94 billion miles (more than 150 billion kilometers) around, and our calculation of that distance would be off by no more than the width of your little finger.

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[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Now I want to see the original letter. For some reason this reminds me of David Thorne (27bslash6)

https://27bslash6.com/bob.html

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 46 points 2 days ago (7 children)

During lockdown I had a bit of time on my hands so I memorised all the digits of pi in the right order.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I memorized them in numerical order. First there's a bunch of 0s then a bunch of 1s, followed by 2s, and so on.

[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

I took the opposite approach. All the digits of pi, in the right order, are 3.145926870.

Obviously I had to eliminate any duplicates otherwise this post would have been a lot longer.

[–] matti@sopuli.xyz 12 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Yeah but how many 0s do you have before you get to the first 1? I've been working on it but still don't have a definite answer.

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

At least 4 or 5

[–] stebo02@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

I don't know the exact number but it's quite a few of them

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] idunnololz@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is that actually true or is that an unsolved problem?

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's believed to be true to a high degree.

Pi is infinite. It's also believed with a high degree of certainty (but not proven) to be a normal number, which basically means all the digits are evenly distributed over the infinite series. So if that is true, there would be an infinite number of 0s. Theoretically it could suddenly turn out to not be normal after a certain amount of digits are found, and then 0 could just stop entirely after a certain point, but this is incredibly unlikely.

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[–] SippyCup@feddit.nl 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)
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[–] Anti_Face_Weapon@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

I like how the filename is "NoFair.webp". Hiding a funny little message in the filename is classy.

[–] LoveSausage@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 2 days ago (5 children)

3.1 I hold the world record for memorizing the shortest length of pi decimals.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (3 children)
[–] DaddleDew@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

This guy engineers

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 6 points 2 days ago

you won after all

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[–] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 19 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] gnawmon@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] neclimdul@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Three, no more, no less. Three is the number of pi. Four should not be pi, neither two. Five is right out.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

I got into a long debate with someone who wouldn't accept my claim that pi is 3.

My reasoning was that 3 is accurate to the number of decimal places it's quoted to, which is all you ever can say of any given value of pi. Like, pi might not be exactly 3, but it's not 3.14159265358979323846 either, because both values still have infinity digits missing.

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[–] GroundedGator@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Does anyone else really want to write them now just to get an official rejection letter?

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago

If I write them enough and get enough rejection letters, can I then get accepted as the Guinness World Records record holder for most rejections of Guinness World Record records?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

This isn't really a meme

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is there a Guiness world record for classes or categories of individuals with the most rejection letters from the Guiness World Records association?

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[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

3.11

You could say he was all mixed up, and he didn’t know what (else) to do.

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Pi for workgroups.

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