I’m currently at 9,200 digits of pi memorised, and will soon be ready to make an attempt for the Pi world ranking list. (Aiming for around 10,500)
I emailed them over a month ago asking a few questions and haven’t heard any reply. I need their address to send my form and details to.
Does anyone here have experience submitting their results to the world ranking list?
I was just wondering a few things, like do the digits need to be recited verbally or can they be entered into a computer etc.
Awesome work! I did mine in the summer of 2022 and it took over six months to get it registered and on the list. It took a very long time for an initial response, but he’ll get to you, just stay patient.
There’s a list of requirements on the site. It doesn’t specifically say, but it doesn’t need to be done verbally, but it needs to be clear that you are recalling them completely unaided. There are also additional witness requirements if you are going past 10000 digits:
“Performances of 10,000 digits or more must be certified by an additional academic or scientific witness. Alternatively this may be an official such as a lawyer, notary, or minister, who must be present and certify the performance. If this is absolutely impossible, please contact us.”
Congrats on the progress, you’re in elite company!
Greetings! I’m curious if you heard back. I sent an email a few months ago with the form, signed by witnesses, for my recitation of 1,000 digits, but I have not heard back. The last update of rankings seems to have been in March 2024. Does anyone know if it’s still being maintained? Hope so. Bob
There is typically a large update sometime after Pi day (March 14.) The site admin is notoriously slow and unresponsive, but it appears that major attempts do get logged eventually.
Still waiting unfortunately…
Ready to recite 11,000 places now. Does anyone know how mistakes are handled?
Like lets say I recite 11,000 but make 50 mistakes - is that considered 10,950 or something?
The count is of consecutive digits perfectly recalled from the first decimal digit. (The “3.” doesn’t count.) You get credit for however many digits you were able to get through before making your FIRST mistake. The attempt is considered over and should be stopped as soon as one mistake is made. You can then try again from the beginning (if your witnesses are willing to stick around!)
So, if your only mistake happened on say the 21st digit and the next 10979 were perfect, sorry, but it will only count as 20 correct consecutive digits.
Since you’re attempting more than 10,000 digits, make sure you have your additional academic witness ready!
Wow, that’s tough. Thanks for letting me know. In that case it will probably take at least another month of practice to make sure everything is perfect.
Honestly I feel like learning 15,000 digits and getting 99.5% correct would probably be easier than learning 10,000 and getting 100% correct.
I still don’t see any updates to the pi world rankings. Do you have any new intel? Thanks.
My pi attempt did not get posted for almost a year. I was sure that for whatever reason the admin had not received the signatures in the mail or something, when it eventually got posted.
I sent mine by email but not by mail as I don’t have an address. The rules seem to say to send by email first. Can you share an address? Thanks.
Ok, now it’s over 7 months without a reply… I’m really getting sick of waking up every morning and reciting pi. It will be such a huge weight lifted off my shoulders when I can finally forget these 10,500+ digits.
I think I’m going to do my attempt soon and get it over and done with, at least I will then have proof (the form signed by witnesses) if and when the pi world ranking list ever gets back to me.
The issue is mistakes, on average I’m making about 2 mistakes per thousand digits in practice. All the mistakes are cases where I basically knew the right image but just got something slightly wrong or in the wrong order. It sucks.
The last thing I want is to get 3.5 hours into the ~4 hour recital and then make a mistake. That would be a disaster. (I’m going for the national record - it’s 10,500+ or broke)
At this point I’m considering doing something like screen recording myself typing the digits into a computer, with additional cameras on my face, hands and another camera from behind. Then I’ll have a video I can show to anyone as proof. All I really need is for the academic witness to sign saying that he is satisfied I have recited them without errors and without cheating. Doing it this way would at least give me the chance to have a few failed attempts by myself instead of finding an academic who’s willing to waste ~12 hours listening to me say pi.
instead of recalling whole 10k at the same time in one go ? can’t you recall just 1k or 2k from your locations many times a day or few days.
then move to next chunk of 1k or 2k and after completing that try whole 10k ?
I know 1000 digits of pi but without any memory techniques, I did memo while singing it in pair of random chunks. and surprisingly I even remember it without daily recalling while I wake up since I did lots of spaced repetition in back days. But it’s more than 7,8 years and I still remember it.
I am just saying if I ever memo more, I will think the pi digit started from 1001th place. since before that I know by heart. If you can also do that you might reduce the mistakes.
If you don’t mind me asking, I’m curious as to what method you used for your memorisation and how long did it take you?
I’m currently at 4,000 digits, using 2-2-2 PAO (Major System) memory palace for the first 3,000 digits and then switching to a 3-2-3 PAO for the rest which I’m still getting familiar with. For mistakes, I ‘flag’ them and review them after recalling a chunk, trying to reinforce the image.
My goal is 10,000 like you’ve done, hopefully getting it on the ranking list as well (: