Digits of Pi Trainer
Pi is the distance around any circle divided by the distance across it. Its decimals never end and never settle into a repeating pattern, which makes them a classic memory challenge. A long string of digits is the plainest case of chunking from the infographic: 14159265 is eight things to hold, but 1415 · 9265 is two.
Using the Major System for digits
Digits are hard to picture, so the Major System turns each digit into a consonant sound: 0 is s or z, 1 is t or d, 2 is n, 3 is m, 4 is r, 5 is l, 6 is j, sh, ch or soft g, 7 is k or hard g, 8 is f or v, and 9 is p or b. Vowels and w, h and y are free fillers, and it is the sound that counts, not the spelling. So 14 is t-r, a tire, and 15 is t-l, a tail: a tire with a tail. Put each picture at a stop on a journey, and the digits come back in order.
The words shown here are one possible list. Your own words will stick better, so swap in any word whose sounds fit. Learn the system step by step in the Memory Systems course: the ten sounds, sounds, not spelling, your 00 to 99 list and long numbers.
Sources
- e: MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews: 10000 digits of e
- e: Makoto Kamada's Mathland: decimal expansions of e
- π (pi): MacTutor History of Mathematics, University of St Andrews: 1000 places of π
- π (pi): University of Michigan course page: the first 1000 digits of pi
- π (pi): Cuemath: What are 1000 digits of pi?
All 1,000 decimal places match MacTutor and an independent computation (Machin's formula). The Michigan page agrees through decimal 998 (it rounds its last digit), and Cuemath agrees through the first 929 decimals as fetched. All 100 decimal places match both sources and an independent computation (the series 1 + 1/1! + 1/2! + ...).
More: all memory challenges · Chunk It game · deck of cards.