Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:14 pm
*counts* I only know the first 12 digits, but my calculator doesn't shows up to there anyways, so I can't be blamed xD. I'd memorize more when I have time (but probably only get to 20 or so =P).
Personally I think it's amazing that he can memorize so many digits... I don't see what's wrong about that. I agree with Jasujo and Tinkerbell.
Ginger - what's wrong with people who do different or complex things? Maybe he actually has an interest in pi (otherwise, he'd probably be bored to death). And doing things that are hard to accomplish boosts your self-confidence. It's not like he's putting anyone down. The people who feel bad about something that others accomplish are IMO just jealous.
Personally I think it's amazing that he can memorize so many digits... I don't see what's wrong about that. I agree with Jasujo and Tinkerbell.
Ginger - what's wrong with people who do different or complex things? Maybe he actually has an interest in pi (otherwise, he'd probably be bored to death). And doing things that are hard to accomplish boosts your self-confidence. It's not like he's putting anyone down. The people who feel bad about something that others accomplish are IMO just jealous.
Fri Mar 17, 2006 11:52 pm
Divine wrote:Ginger - what's wrong with people who do different or complex things? Maybe he actually has an interest in pi (otherwise, he'd probably be bored to death). And doing things that are hard to accomplish boosts your self-confidence. It's not like he's putting anyone down. The people who feel bad about something that others accomplish are IMO just jealous.
Nothing, really. It's just my opinion and it's obvious that there are some people out there who are full of themselves and will do anything to make themselves look good. There is such a thing as egotism, you know. And yeah, maybe there is a bit of jealousy inside me but I'm only human afterall. We all have our faults.
Sat Mar 18, 2006 1:53 am
We had pi day at my school and this guy memorized 40,000 numbers of it. 
Sat Mar 18, 2006 2:52 am
I understand where he is coming from. People commented earlier in these pages things like, "Why would someone sit around and memorize pi?" and "That's such a waste of time." and so forth.
However, for some of us, we don't need to sit around and purposefully memorize things. I'll use myself as an example. I can easily memorize items without trying, just by reading them once through. I had Human Anatomy & Physiology as a class a year ago, and can name the muscles and bones off the top of my head for you. For the face, we have the frontalis, the corrugator, the orbucularis oculi, the orbicularis oris, the procerus, caninus, the zygomaticus major & minor, buccinatorius, mentalis... and that's just a small portion of the muscles in the face--in fact, that's not even all of them, there's more. :-)
I completely appreciate it, as well. This form of memory has made school extremely easy for me--I have never studied for any sort of test--and I'm sure that he is in the same boat. It's great to exercise your mind, too. Sometimes, when I have nothing else to do, I'll go find a site online with number sequences and try to solve the pattern. (One of my favourites is "1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221..." The next number is 312211.) I'm not going to lie... Anatomy, Physics and Calculus are my favourite classes of all time, hands down. This is because it just clicks for me.
But if someone dared to say something, such as, "Memorizing the names of muscles/memorizing number sequences is a complete waste of time and memory," I would honestly be hurt. This isn't something you do on purpose, it just happens. People don't ask to be born with certain talents, some just are. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born with a gift to hear a song once and be able to play it back. In fact, he was so gifted that he could add on an even more intricate set of music on top of the piece he played back, so it became even more complex and beautiful. Then there are your athletes, who are born with an amazing physical talent that can exceed that of 'normal' people. An example is Michael Johnson, who ran 200 meters in 19.66 seconds (or, 10.173 m/s) in the 1996 Olympic trials. That is ridiculously fast and that guy is a machine.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent now. This is just something that I feel strongly on because alot of people get misunderstood by this sort of thing. Some will say that people who do these things, show impressive feats of memory or skill and such, are "showing off." But alot of times, that's not the case. I've had people become angry at me for trying to explain to them a concept of phyics or math that they don't understand--angry because it's so easy for me, and I really don't mean for them to become frusterated.
My point is that people should really recognize that everyone is born with a skill or talent that they can either utilise or let go to waste. Hopefully those born with said abilities don't take the latter path. My major is actually Biology and I plan on going to medical school after college. I want to help people in whatever way I can.
Sorry about such a long and disjointed post. :-x Anyway... nice weather, eh?
However, for some of us, we don't need to sit around and purposefully memorize things. I'll use myself as an example. I can easily memorize items without trying, just by reading them once through. I had Human Anatomy & Physiology as a class a year ago, and can name the muscles and bones off the top of my head for you. For the face, we have the frontalis, the corrugator, the orbucularis oculi, the orbicularis oris, the procerus, caninus, the zygomaticus major & minor, buccinatorius, mentalis... and that's just a small portion of the muscles in the face--in fact, that's not even all of them, there's more. :-)
I completely appreciate it, as well. This form of memory has made school extremely easy for me--I have never studied for any sort of test--and I'm sure that he is in the same boat. It's great to exercise your mind, too. Sometimes, when I have nothing else to do, I'll go find a site online with number sequences and try to solve the pattern. (One of my favourites is "1, 11, 21, 1211, 111221..." The next number is 312211.) I'm not going to lie... Anatomy, Physics and Calculus are my favourite classes of all time, hands down. This is because it just clicks for me.
But if someone dared to say something, such as, "Memorizing the names of muscles/memorizing number sequences is a complete waste of time and memory," I would honestly be hurt. This isn't something you do on purpose, it just happens. People don't ask to be born with certain talents, some just are. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born with a gift to hear a song once and be able to play it back. In fact, he was so gifted that he could add on an even more intricate set of music on top of the piece he played back, so it became even more complex and beautiful. Then there are your athletes, who are born with an amazing physical talent that can exceed that of 'normal' people. An example is Michael Johnson, who ran 200 meters in 19.66 seconds (or, 10.173 m/s) in the 1996 Olympic trials. That is ridiculously fast and that guy is a machine.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent now. This is just something that I feel strongly on because alot of people get misunderstood by this sort of thing. Some will say that people who do these things, show impressive feats of memory or skill and such, are "showing off." But alot of times, that's not the case. I've had people become angry at me for trying to explain to them a concept of phyics or math that they don't understand--angry because it's so easy for me, and I really don't mean for them to become frusterated.
My point is that people should really recognize that everyone is born with a skill or talent that they can either utilise or let go to waste. Hopefully those born with said abilities don't take the latter path. My major is actually Biology and I plan on going to medical school after college. I want to help people in whatever way I can.
Sorry about such a long and disjointed post. :-x Anyway... nice weather, eh?
Sat Mar 18, 2006 6:45 am
I did respond very meanly. Sorry.
However, my viewpoint stays the same.
If he wants to memorize pi, he's probably a very smart kid. So why doesn't he channel his energy into learning something that will be useful?
However, my viewpoint stays the same.
If he wants to memorize pi, he's probably a very smart kid. So why doesn't he channel his energy into learning something that will be useful?
Sat Mar 18, 2006 11:39 am
o_0 wrote:I did respond very meanly. Sorry.
However, my viewpoint stays the same.
If he wants to memorize pi, he's probably a very smart kid. So why doesn't he channel his energy into learning something that will be useful?
As I said earlier, he probably knows many useful things, but this article was about him trying to break the pi recital record, so that's all they told about. I'm sure if you found him out and asked to see his report card, it'd be just as impressive.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 12:33 am
o_0 wrote:What a stupid kid.
No, seriously. I people who memorize pi (or phi, or any other constant). It's a waste of memory. It's like, "Hmm, should I become an idiot savant and memorize 8,000 digits of pi or should I use my time to help others?"
It's not like memorizing pi's going to help you at all (except maybe in the "Pi-Reciting Championship of the Universe".
Yeah, I'm feeling mad today.
No offence to the kid. I'm just in a bad mood.
actually thay changed it to just Savants now.. because Daniel T. (i think thats his name) is a perfectly normal savant and hes good with numbers... he recited the first like 22.5 million or thousand or something like that decimal places of Pi
--and some other guy got hit in the head and he remembers the weather of everyday since he was ten
-- Hooray for Discovery channel
Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:40 am
I was reading the book of world records once, and I saw that there was a guy who memorized and recited over 40k digits. Recently, I heard of a guy with no memory filter or something. Hmm...connection? I don't think they're the same guy, but I can't help feeling like anyone who can memorize thousands of digits of a number has some sort of thing with their memory. Some people say numbers should be just as easy as words, but have any of them ever tried memorizing thousands of words in a specific order? I don't mean any of this negatively, by the way.
I don't think they're the same guy, but I can't help feeling like anyone who can memorize thousands of digits of a number has some sort of thing with their memory. Some people say numbers should be just as easy as words, but have any of them ever tried memorizing thousands of words in a specific order? I don't mean any of this negatively, by the way.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 1:50 am
tymaporer wrote:... Some people say numbers should be just as easy as words, but have any of them ever tried memorizing thousands of words in a specific order? I don't mean any of this negatively, by the way.
Also not meaning any negativity.
Some actors memorize entire Shakespeare plays, so word memorization is not uncommon. I think (as a math and science person) that it is more impressive to memorize the plays. I also think it is funner to listen to as well.
Yay all arts! From acting to science!
Sun Mar 19, 2006 9:22 am
Skynetmain wrote:tymaporer wrote:... Some people say numbers should be just as easy as words, but have any of them ever tried memorizing thousands of words in a specific order? I don't mean any of this negatively, by the way.
Also not meaning any negativity.
Some actors memorize entire Shakespeare plays, so word memorization is not uncommon. I think (as a math and science person) that it is more impressive to memorize the plays. I also think it is funner to listen to as well.
Yay all arts! From acting to science!
I don't think you can really compare memorising a Shakespeare play to learning eight thousand, or forty thousand digits of Pi.
While both are very amazing feats, the forty thousand digits of Pi, have no meaning, at all to the person reciting it, unless the person has some sort of special relationship with each number. I.E, 3 is for the number of siblings I have, 1 is for.. 4 is for... et cetera.
A play by Shakespeare is slightly different. Everyone (who has read the play) knows that Mercutio's line of "A plague o'both your houses! I am sped." comes after Abraham's line of "Do you bite at us, sir?", and Sampson's reply is always going to be "I do bite my thumb, sir." and it'll never be a different way.
Memorising Romeo & Juliet and memorising Pi are slightly different but still amazing feats in their own way. Reciting Romeo & Juliet from memory more interesting. Also, it's more likely to produce more meaningful comments from peers/teachers because they can relate to Romeo & Juliet in way, rather than Pi, which is just a long sequence of numbers.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 10:40 am
Also, the numbers of pi are going to be random and related. There will be no pattern to help you memorise them. Shakepeare's words have meaning and will therefore be more easily memorised, unlike pi.
You can't compare pi to Shakespeare as the mind will memorise them in completely different ways. (I'd explain but it's a big load of mumbo jumbo to do with STM and LTM!) You can however, compare pi to learning a list of completely unrelated words. For example, pipe, tree, disintergrate, red, costume etc etc.
You can't compare pi to Shakespeare as the mind will memorise them in completely different ways. (I'd explain but it's a big load of mumbo jumbo to do with STM and LTM!) You can however, compare pi to learning a list of completely unrelated words. For example, pipe, tree, disintergrate, red, costume etc etc.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:08 am
craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazy.
But also kinda cool.
But also kinda cool.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 6:29 pm
Or you could compare learning pi to memorizing a song in Japanese when you don't speak the language
Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:17 pm
Okay. Maybe a Shakespeare comparison was not too good (just going for numbers of words there). How about a series of seemingly random examples from my own life? Virtually every Simpsons song, complete with right voices; dozens of other songs, most in Japanese; the preamble to the Declaration of Independence (just going for word, not numbers); most of the elements on the Periodic Table, both name and abbv.
The reason we cannot compare memorizing words to memorizing numbers is because word have always been presented in a set arrangement since the day we were born. Few numbers have set arrangements, ie, (1/3) = .3333333333333, c = 3.0 x 10^8, R = Na * k. If you wanted a person to memorize a list of random words, that list would always have to be changing or else the person would figure out a pattern or mnemonic (ex. All Students Take Calculus = All Sine Tangent Cosine) to help them remember the list of words. Therefore bringing up a comparison between memorizing words (in any language) to memorizing numbers was a fallacy to begin with if you wanted to define the system as truely random. The kid who learned pi had to have a system to learn all those numbers. Actors that learn a role have to have a system to learn a role. A bored college stunt (ex. me) has a system to learn useless Simpsons facts. One of the key lessons we learn Thermal Physics is that nature prefers order. What is seemingly random is actually something we can define.
The reason we cannot compare memorizing words to memorizing numbers is because word have always been presented in a set arrangement since the day we were born. Few numbers have set arrangements, ie, (1/3) = .3333333333333, c = 3.0 x 10^8, R = Na * k. If you wanted a person to memorize a list of random words, that list would always have to be changing or else the person would figure out a pattern or mnemonic (ex. All Students Take Calculus = All Sine Tangent Cosine) to help them remember the list of words. Therefore bringing up a comparison between memorizing words (in any language) to memorizing numbers was a fallacy to begin with if you wanted to define the system as truely random. The kid who learned pi had to have a system to learn all those numbers. Actors that learn a role have to have a system to learn a role. A bored college stunt (ex. me) has a system to learn useless Simpsons facts. One of the key lessons we learn Thermal Physics is that nature prefers order. What is seemingly random is actually something we can define.
Sun Mar 19, 2006 11:56 pm
Amethyst wrote:Or you could compare learning pi to memorizing a song in Japanese when you don't speak the language
Nah, I learnt the naruto theme
Music gives something meaning ^_^