Piphilology
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Piphilology comprises the creation and use of mnemonic techniques to remember a span of digits of the mathematical constant π. The word is a play on Pi itself and the linguistic field of philology.
The most common mnemonic technique is to memorize a sentence in which the number of letters in each word in turn is equal to the corresponding digit of π. The most famous example takes a number of variations, including:
- How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy lectures involving quantum mechanics!
- How I need a drink, alcoholic in nature, after the tough chapters involving quantum mechanics!
Another, more poetic, version yields:
- Sir, I send a rhyme excelling,
- in sacred truth and rigid spelling,
- numerical sprites elucidate,
- for me the lexicon's dull weight.
The number of letters in each respective word is 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, 9, 2, 6, 5, 3, 5, 8, 9, 7, 9. These are the first 15 digits of the decimal expansion of π. If less accuracy is required the following examples can be used:
- How I wish I could recollect pi easily today!
- Can I have a large container of coffee? Thank you.
Longer ones following the same concept, such as this example created by Peter M. Brigham, can be useful when twenty-one or fewer digits are required:
- How I wish I could enumerate pi easily, since all these (censored) mnemonics prevent recalling any of pi's sequence more simply.
There are piphilologists who have written poems encoding hundreds of digits. This is an example of constrained writing.
See also
External links
- Piphilology at Wikiquote
- Andreas P. Hatzipolakis: PiPhilology. A site with hundreds of examples of π mnemonics (http://www.cilea.it/~bottoni/www-cilea/F90/piph.htm)
- Mike Keith's World of Words & Numbers. A site with many pieces of constrained writing (http://members.aol.com/s6sj7gt/:)
- Poe, E.: Near a Raven (http://members.aol.com/s6sj7gt/mikerav.htm)
- Memorize 1000 digits of pi (http://theory.cs.iitm.ernet.in/~arvindn/pi/)