The digits of Pi are fascinating. As the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, Pi has such a fundamental definition, and yet this ratio is irrational and so its decimal expansion never repeats. It is easy to be mesmerized by the digits of the decimal expansion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510…
and many people have tried to memorize digits of pi for fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One fun way to memorize the first few digits is to use sentence mnemonics for pi— phrases in which the number of letters of each successive word corresponds to a digit of pi. Here are some well-known pi mnemonics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Wow! I made a great discovery!” (3.14159…)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “Can I have a small container of coffee?” (3.1415926…)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n “How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics.” (3.14159265358979…)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Presentation Suggestions:<\/strong> The Math Behind the Fact:<\/strong> How to Cite this Page:<\/strong>\u00a0 Fun Fact suggested by:<\/strong> The digits of Pi are fascinating. As the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, Pi has...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"tags":[3,8,37,12,29,34,33],"class_list":["post-178","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","tag-easy","tag-geometry","tag-irrational","tag-other","tag-pi","tag-pi-day","tag-pi-mnemonics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1526,"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/178\/revisions\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/math.hmc.edu\/funfacts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
For more fun on Pi, see also Pi Approximations and Finding the N-th digit of Pi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is fun to try writing your own story or poem as a pi mnemonic. One decision you’ll have to make is how to deal with 0’s in the decimal expansion of pi (such as in the 32nd decimal place). Some choose to use a 10-letter word to represent a zero. Others choose to use non-period punctuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Su, Francis E., et al. “Memorizing Pi.”\u00a0Math Fun Facts<\/em>. <http:\/\/www.math.hmc.edu\/funfacts>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Francis Su<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"