138, Pi-Pi My Poor Memory Pi

There's a mnemonic to remember the first eight digits of pi: 

3.1415926.   May I have a large container of coffee

The number of letters in every word indicates the digit.

I saw an amazing feat of memory the other day.  Someone shuffled two full packs of cards and then, as fast as he could, dealt every one, face up, on to a table.  I suppose that it took him as long to complete this operation as it took him to count from one to a hundred and four.  This process was closely scrutinised by a second man.

Then, after the pack had been turned over so that no card was visible, one of the audience called out, “thirty-nine.”  The second man instantly said, “six of hearts,” and lo and behold, the thirty ninth card from the top was the six of hearts.  

“Ninety-three,” was the next suggestion and, “ten of spades,” was said immediately.   He had memorised the order of the two packs and in about a minute.

For everyday purposes, my memory is OK but I can’t imagine ever being able to learn the order of a pack of cards, even if I had unlimited time.  

I had an English teacher at school who, possibly because he didn’t want to mark written work, would regularly set, memorising a poem as homework.  (That, I discovered years later, is a very good and useful tactic.)  Some poems I found easy to remember but many I didn’t.

“He didn’t write that,” I said to Caroline while we were watching the film ‘Memphis Belle’ on television.  “Yeats did.”

A young American pilot of a B-17 bomber was reciting a poem that his crew assumed he had written.  

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above; 

Those that I fight I do not hate, 

Those that I guard I do not love.

I paused the television.  

“That's, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ by WB Yeats.  Doughsie Baker made me learn it in the second year,” I told her.   “Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Yes, but on the film, thanks, not from you.”

Oscar and Timo are our nephews and they both seem to have excellent memories and they are also competitive.  Oscar bought a book of the elements of the periodic table to read on a car journey to our house in Wavendon.  Every element had a page to itself, listing things like its symbol, atomic number and melting point. 

They had been reading it together on the hour-long journey and as soon as he saw me, Timo, who is nine, announced, "I know the first 49 elements in the periodic table."  

“Test me,” he demanded, handing me the book.

“Zinc.”                              

“Symbol is z n, atomic number 30, Melting point 420 centigrade and it was discovered by Andreas Maggraf in 1746.”

I was impressed.  “Andreas Maggraf was German,” Timo added, obligingly.

A few minutes later I heard Timo shouting out to his mum.  It was a grief-stricken cry that conveyed a feeling of distress that I, and possibly no one else, has ever heard before. 

“Mum!  Oscar’s locked himself in the toilet with the book to learn more elements.”

Eventually, Oscar emerged and told Timo that he knew the first hundred.  Timo was allowed sole possession of the book for a time and so Oscar decided to learn the digits of pi instead.  He printed off the first 1000 and disappeared upstairs.  

Sometime later, he reappeared and told us that he knew the first hundred.  By the next day, he knew the first 328. 

Oscar has some way to go, however.  The world champion has recited the first 100,000 digits of pi and it took him nearly 17 hours to do it.

Even at my age, I must be able to do better than eight digits and so I have used 'May I have a large container of coffee' as the start of a blank-verse "poem".  

Ignore the punctuation, remember that the word ‘zero’ represents 0 and not 4 as I couldn’t think of any words that have no letters. Memorise this “poem” and you will know the first 50 digits of pi.  

I don’t see the point of that - but you might.

May I have a large container of coffee?

After two hours, Caroline concluded working furiously

And so, was exultant.  

Four flasks of whisky were all she received

But in gulping, Caroline’s found zero to eulogise.  

Drinking with a rapturous imbiber, 

A modest reticence, but essential.

Sometimes the drinker - never I.     

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751 

Caroline has just told me that it is easier to learn the first 50 digits of pi than to remember that poem. 

I think she’s just grumpy.  I didn’t set out to make it appear that I might disapprove of her drinking.  It’s her fault for having an eight-letter name.

Honestly, it just developed that way.