Mats Bergsten is a genius

[Mike Hughey]

The pi memorization thing is pretty impressive for sure, but I think it wouldn't be right to call someone a genius for that.

I agree with this entirely. I consider Mats a genius for a combination of many reasons, not just this.

 

[pi.cubed]

That's amazing. Mats, do you have trouble practising your pi? Because to recite all 10000 digits would take many hours woudn't it?

I also find it amazing you've done all of this with rote memorization. Remarkable.

I feel like I'm not worthy to have pi in my name.

 

[MatsBergsten]

Well to me it's always meant that, too (which I think is what most people would associate it with), but upon research Mats did use it correctly. It can also pertain to being a genius.

Aha. at first I did not understand qqwrefs note. It is not always easy to understand nuances when
you don't speak your native language. All in all I am then preferred to be known by my geniality (qqwref)
than my geniality (=genius)

@Chris: the test we are talking about (the "Everest" test) only had groups starting at pos 5*n + 1.
Then someone invented another where the groups could start anywhere and even be groups
backwards, that was very much harder but also not particularly "fun".

@pi.cubed: I don't practice pi any more, I find cubing (and chess) much more fun (and competitive).
So I have forgotten lots of digits, still it is easier to relearn them for each time you do.
As to the time to recite them I was one of the fastest recaller, for two reasons I think:
as I did not use any mnemonics I did not have to "uncode" something to get the message (decimals).
Also because I practiced juggling, so I "had" to read fast before I dropped the balls. While setting
the pi/juggling WR it took 1:15 to 1:20 (I don't remember exactly) for almost 10000 decimals,

 

[Zane_C]

This is very impressive Mats, well done!

 

[RCTACameron]

I remember when I was memorising pi (I only ever got to 37 digits), someone told me what the WR for memorising it was (approximately). I didn't realise it was Mats!

 

[MatsBergsten]

I remember when I was memorising pi (I only ever got to 37 digits), someone told me what the WR for memorising it was (approximately). I didn't realise it was Mats!

It was not. I have never held the "regular" pi decimal reciting WR. I've never even been close.
But Hideako Tomoyori from Japan (who is also a cuber) has.

I have two more "odd" pi WR:s, the Everest which Rahul happened to notice and then "Pi & Juggling".

 

[freshcuber]

Quick google search told me the current pi reciting decimal WR is 100,000. Utterly astounding.

 

[rahulkadukar]

It was not. I have never held the "regular" pi decimal reciting WR. I've never even been close.
But Hideako Tomoyori from Japan (who is also a cuber) has.

I have two more "odd" pi WR:s, the Everest which Rahul happened to notice and then "Pi & Juggling".

You are mentioned in the book "Alex's Adventures in Numberland", and I thought you must be the same guy and the author is simply impressed by your skills , so I thought I will add it here to the forum.

 

[MatsBergsten]

You are mentioned in the book "Alex's Adventures in Numberland", and I thought you must be the same guy and the author is simply impressed by your skills , so I thought I will add it here to the forum.

Aha again . I remember being "interviewed" by the author (via email) a couple of years
back but I thought nothing more came out of it. Now I of course have to read/get that book .

 

[TMOY]

well, it could be, but Pi is very much random sequence of nubmers so there are 100000 possible combinations in every of these groups... so when you have 2000 of them, i guess it's 1:50... maybe i made somewhere mistake

Yes, you made a mistake. 1/50 is (approximately) the probability of having at least one of the 2000 5-dgits sequences being equal to some fixed sequence. The probability of having at least two of them equal to each other is much higher than that. (Yes it's couterintuitive, but it's true. It's called the birthday paradox.)

 

[Mr Cubism]

Genius or good memory, anyway, I think we all would be pleased to have the developed skills from Mats

Around the millenium (oooh, 11 years ago now...) I learned the first 1000 digits of pi myself(started with 100 digits but continued when I noticed that it was easier than I thought). It took about two months. And I didn´t wanted to memorize with "cheating" memory picture methods, just in the raw way. I put them in groups of two, three, four or five. The memo is close to remember a telephone number, you se patterns in it. Lets say you know 10 telephon numbers. Just put them together and suddenly you can rember 100 digits right away.

I have re-learned them a few times after almost forgetting everything, but now it was about 2 year ago since the last time. The cubing replaced it.


I think I will need a week or so to have everything back in the mind. It took me about 7 minutes to gabble 1 to 1000 and of couse it was easier with my eyes closed. No much for a need in daily life, but a good concentration thing. An extra effort was to couting backwards, that was challenging. :-/

Mats, you rules!

 

[Rune]

Aha. at first I did not understand qqwrefs note. It is not always easy to understand nuances when
you don't speak your native language. All in all I am then preferred to be known by my geniality (qqwref)
than my geniality (=genius)

@Chris: the test we are talking about (the "Everest" test) only had groups starting at pos 5*n + 1.
Then someone invented another where the groups could start anywhere and even be groups
backwards, that was very much harder but also not particularly "fun".

@pi.cubed: I don't practice pi any more, I find cubing (and chess) much more fun (and competitive).
So I have forgotten lots of digits, still it is easier to relearn them for each time you do.
As to the time to recite them I was one of the fastest recaller, for two reasons I think:
as I did not use any mnemonics I did not have to "uncode" something to get the message (decimals).
Also because I practiced juggling, so I "had" to read fast before I dropped the balls. While setting
the pi/juggling WR it took 1:15 to 1:20 (I don't remember exactly) for almost 10000 decimals,