Hands up if you can remember the value of π
An OMG moment just happened which made me drop my cup of coffee and sat there awestruck. No, Pamela Anderson didn't walk pass me and do the V-sign. I just read that a US high school student just recited 8,784 digits of PI -π .
If you don't know what is PI, you possibly didn't complete primary school. And still don't know how to calculate the area of a circle. PI is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle - in other words ,the infamous 3.14159265358979323846. . . Back in school, most of us got lazy and just use 3.1416. People who were lazy to an epic level (in other words, Captain Obvious) use 22/7 which on hindsight, might explain why my answers are always pretty far off then the rest. Area of circle = πr2, remember?
So this 15-year old kid, Gaurav Rajav (judging by the name, must be of Indian origins), manages to recite 8,784 digits of PI. He was aiming for 10,790 digits but he got stuck somewhere at 8700 range. I think all of us can sympathise with him. I mean, I lost track of the PI digits after, oh I don't know, the THIRD DECIMAL PLACE and this Indian kid actually went on to recite 8,784 digits. Loser. The amazing thing is that you would think a person who can recite 8,784 digits of PI should be in the Guiness Book of Records for having the most wonderful memory in the world as well as being a dumbass with zero social life. But nooo . . .apparently he was just no.12 in the world and third in the US! So there were a lot of weird dumbasses out there in the world!
It also shows how far has science progresses to that stage where we have a kid who can recite 8,784 digits of PI. The Bible itself states π = 3 (some passages in Kings 7:23 when some dipshit try to explain to King Solomon the use of a basin. It also showed that ancient Jews were not exactly big on decimal place). Babylonians had the value at 3.125 and the ancient Chinese scholars got it close at 3.1415926.
Any way, I was thinking whether how many Singaporean kids would be as strange as the Indian kid to set your mind to do something like this? When I was 15, I was mainly concerned with scoring 100 on every exams and memorising every single question in the 10-year series. Ooh, I ace the O-levels all right but to be honest, I am still not exactly sure what π really means. It looks like a cool symbol, sort of like the symbol of pain in Dungeons and Dragons. Many will say "Who cares what PI means and how many digits it has? Just use a calculator to show π, stupid." True. But you got to admire the Indian kid's determination and plain weirdness in trying to remember 10,000 digits. There are just not enough weird dumbasses among Singaporean kids anymore. We don't have kids which do strange curious things like stare at a lightbulb, poke frogs or lizards or try to remember as many digits of π as possible. Singaporean kids just ain't that curious anymore. They memorise the answers and go home to play World of Warcraft. Real inspiring, dumbasses. The future of the nation is in safe hands or specifically, the hands of kids who probably don't know what π really means but know how to defeat an army of orcs with human knights in gnomish balloons. Or defeat Jinpaichi using Asuka's 10 hit combos in Tekken 5. Stupid.
When is the last time we heard of a young and upcoming Singapore scientist? Some might ask, "What Singapore scientists? We have already being over-ran by Indian scientists and engineers, idiot". And you might be right.
If you don't know what is PI, you possibly didn't complete primary school. And still don't know how to calculate the area of a circle. PI is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle - in other words ,the infamous 3.14159265358979323846. . . Back in school, most of us got lazy and just use 3.1416. People who were lazy to an epic level (in other words, Captain Obvious) use 22/7 which on hindsight, might explain why my answers are always pretty far off then the rest. Area of circle = πr2, remember?
So this 15-year old kid, Gaurav Rajav (judging by the name, must be of Indian origins), manages to recite 8,784 digits of PI. He was aiming for 10,790 digits but he got stuck somewhere at 8700 range. I think all of us can sympathise with him. I mean, I lost track of the PI digits after, oh I don't know, the THIRD DECIMAL PLACE and this Indian kid actually went on to recite 8,784 digits. Loser. The amazing thing is that you would think a person who can recite 8,784 digits of PI should be in the Guiness Book of Records for having the most wonderful memory in the world as well as being a dumbass with zero social life. But nooo . . .apparently he was just no.12 in the world and third in the US! So there were a lot of weird dumbasses out there in the world!
It also shows how far has science progresses to that stage where we have a kid who can recite 8,784 digits of PI. The Bible itself states π = 3 (some passages in Kings 7:23 when some dipshit try to explain to King Solomon the use of a basin. It also showed that ancient Jews were not exactly big on decimal place). Babylonians had the value at 3.125 and the ancient Chinese scholars got it close at 3.1415926.
Any way, I was thinking whether how many Singaporean kids would be as strange as the Indian kid to set your mind to do something like this? When I was 15, I was mainly concerned with scoring 100 on every exams and memorising every single question in the 10-year series. Ooh, I ace the O-levels all right but to be honest, I am still not exactly sure what π really means. It looks like a cool symbol, sort of like the symbol of pain in Dungeons and Dragons. Many will say "Who cares what PI means and how many digits it has? Just use a calculator to show π, stupid." True. But you got to admire the Indian kid's determination and plain weirdness in trying to remember 10,000 digits. There are just not enough weird dumbasses among Singaporean kids anymore. We don't have kids which do strange curious things like stare at a lightbulb, poke frogs or lizards or try to remember as many digits of π as possible. Singaporean kids just ain't that curious anymore. They memorise the answers and go home to play World of Warcraft. Real inspiring, dumbasses. The future of the nation is in safe hands or specifically, the hands of kids who probably don't know what π really means but know how to defeat an army of orcs with human knights in gnomish balloons. Or defeat Jinpaichi using Asuka's 10 hit combos in Tekken 5. Stupid.
When is the last time we heard of a young and upcoming Singapore scientist? Some might ask, "What Singapore scientists? We have already being over-ran by Indian scientists and engineers, idiot". And you might be right.
posted by Captain Obvious at 11:03 PM
1 Comments:
I didn't know that PI has so many digits.
Err... I use calculator.
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