Cookstown pupil memorises 207 digits in Pi test

Students at Cookstown High School were pushing their brains to the limit when they recently took part in National Pi Day to celebrate mathematics.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Apr 2016, 09:37 BST
Dyan, Roan and John who were best at memorising digitsDyan, Roan and John who were best at memorising digits
Dyan, Roan and John who were best at memorising digits

To mark the occasion the school held a house competition in the school to see who could memorise the most digits of Pi.

The results were amazing from Year 8 right through to year 14.

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The overall winner was Dylan, in Year 14, who memorised 207 digits . In second place was Roan with 116 digits, and third place was John who knew 103 digits correctly.

Other entrants worthy of a mention are Ellie in Year 9 who rhymed off 100 digits with ease and Emily in Year 8 who knew 87 digits.

The Greek letter “π” is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter - which is approximately 3.14159.

Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point. As an irrational and transcendental number, it will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern.

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While only a handful of digits are needed for typical calculations, Pi’s infinite nature makes it a fun challenge to memorize, and to computationally calculate more and more digits.

Now it’s time to test your mental agility. How many of the following digits can you memorise:

3.1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095 5058223172 5359408128 4811174502 8410270193 8521105559 6446229489 5493038196 4428810? Not easy, but the students of Cookstown High really excelled in rhyming off the digits.