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3.142: Pi, a physical constant, expressed in its simplest form, used to define the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. It's famous for having an infinite number of decimal places. 100,000: Decimal places of pi recited from memory by Akira Haraguchi, a 60-year-old Japanese business consultant on Tuesday. 16: The number of hours it took him to correctly recall all 100,000 decimal places. Want to know what they are? Click here 10: The number of minutes he took for a break every one to two hours during his recital at a public hall in Kisarazu, Japan. Rice balls, not pies, kept his energy levels up. 31: Education officials and conference hall staff who took turns to monitor Mr Haraguchi during his record attempt. 42,195: The Guinness Book of Records' current entry for a recital from memory of pi's decimal places by Hiroyuki Goto, also from Japan. 83,431: Mr Haraguchi's previous best recital of pi's decimal places made in 1995, although it was not confirmed by the Guinness Book of Records. 3/14: The date of mathematical genius Albert Einstein's birthday. 137: Decimal places of pi sung, incorrectly, by Kate Bush on "Pi" from her 2005 album, "Aerial". 1897: The year in which crank mathematician Edwin J. Godwin persuaded the lower house of the Indiana State legislature to approve a bill recognising pi as 3.2. The bill was thrown out by the upper house before it became law and Godwin laughed out of the chamber. ![]() The mathematical symbol for pi, usually found lurking at the bottom of your calculator. |