Happy Pi Day! (That’s 3.14 to youse non-math typeses.) To honor this most famous of the transcendental numbers, I’ve included a number of favorite pi mnemonics for your personal edification.
“Pi mnemonics?” you say. “What are such things?”
Allow me to present an example
God! I need a drink —
Alcoholic, of course —
After all those lectures
Involving radical equations.
There is in mathematical circles (ha!) a great and lengthy tradition of making mnemonics to memorize the digits of 
In a traditional
3.1416
May I draw a circle?
— Anon, found in Dmitri Borgmann’s Language on Vacation, 1965
Yes, I have a number.
— H. E. Licks, Recreations in Mathematics, 1917
3.14159
Wow, I made a great discovery!
–Anon
3.14159 2
Now I need a verse recalling pi.
–Irene Fisher & Dunstan Hayden, Geometry, 1965
3.14159 265
How I wish I could enumerate pi easily today.
–Anon
Yes, I know I shall recollect my number right.
–Wallace Lee, Math Miracles, 1960
May I draw a round enclosure as circle known?
–Dmitri Borgmann, Language on Vacation, 1965
3.14159 26535
May I have a large container of coffee, sugar and cream?
Anon
3.14159 26536 (rounded)
But I must a while endeavour
To reckon right the ratios.
–Anon, Mathematical Gazette, vol. 10, October 1921
3.14159 26535 8
Sir! I send a rhyme excelling
In sacred truth and rigid spelling.
–F. R. S., Nature, vol. 72, no. 1875, October 1905
3.14159 26535 8979
The mathematician’s version:
God! I need a drink —
Alcoholic, of course —
After all those lectures
Involving radical equations.
–Anon
The physicist’s version:
How I want a drink,
Alcoholic of course,
After the heavy chapters
Involving quantum equations.
–Sir James Jeans, c. 1932
3.14159 26535 89793 2384
Now I have a score notations
Of digits large and small,
teaching diameter’s precise relations,
And we can remember ‘tall.
–G. E. Gude, Scientific American Supplement, vol. 77, no. 1994, March 1914
3.14159 26535 89793 23846
How I wish I could recollect pi.
Eureka! cried the great inventor.
Christmas pudding, Christmas pie
Is the problem’s very center.
–Anon, found in Alan D. Baddeley’s The Pyschology of Memory, 1976
Now I sing a silly roundelay
Of radical roots, and utter “Lackaday!
Euclidean results imperfect are, my boy…
Mnemonic arts employ!”
–Willard R. Espy, An Almanac of Words at Play, 1975
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 264
Now I know a spell unfailing,
An artful charm, for tasks availing,
Intricate results entailing.
Not in too exact a mood…
(Poetry is pretty good!)
–Anon, Nature, vol. 72, no. 1878, October 1905.
How I want a drink,
Alcoholic of course,
After the heavy chapters
Involving quantum equations.
All of thy geometry,
Herr Planck, is fairly hard.
–Anonymous extension to Sir Jeans’ famous mnemonic above.
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 8
For circumscribing a round enclosure or circle, every man
might remember ingenious numbers measuring one by one
diameter into circle or circle upon its own diameter…
–Anon, Mathematical Gazette, vol. 4, no. 65, July 1907.
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279
See, I have a rhyme assisting
My feeble brain, its tasks sometime resisting,
Efforts laborious can by its witchery
Grow easier, so hidden here are
The decimals all of circle’s periphery.
–L. R. Stokelbach, The Scientific American Supplement, no. 1994, March 1914.
Now I — even I — would celebrate
In rhymes unapt, the great
Immortal Syracusan, rivaled nevermore
Who in his wondrous lore
Passed on before,
Left men his guidance how to circles mensurate.
–Adam C. Orr, Lierary Digest, vol. 32, no. 3, January 1906.
Now I will a rhyme construct,
By chosen words the young instruct,
Cunningly devised endeavors
Con it and remember ever
Widths in circle here you see
Sketched out in strange obscurity.
–Anon, The Dark Horse, 1951.
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 5
Sir: I wish I could recapture my memory about Sir
Jeans’ diabolic mnemonics! However, invention
now of any reliable easy phrase is beyond what shy
and fumbling aid my present intellect gives.
–Bill Powers, found in Willey Ley’s The Borders of Mathematics, 1967.
May I have a month, professor,
To figure these, you brain assessor?
Calculate, student, calculate now!
As the figuring gets longer,
My friend, hope you get stronger
And no figures incorrect allow!
–Aaron L. Buchman, School Science and Mathematics, 1953.
You I sing, O ratio undefined
By strict assay and lined,
Sequence limitless. Stunned regarding you,
We see eternity — alas — unwind
In random cast and rue,
Dejected out of measure, reckoning blind.
–John Freund, The Mathematics Teacher, vol. 62, 1969.
May I tell a story purposing to render clear
the ratio circular perimeter-breaths, revealing
one of the problems most famous in modern days,
and the greatest man of science anciently known.
–C. J. Jackson, Mathematical Gazette, vol. 4, 1907.
3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 … (3835 digits!)
Of course, the all out winner, a massive mnemonic encoding 3835 digits of
Other useful ways to approximate pi
Archimede’s estimate: 22/7
This gives 3.14.
Chinese estimate: 335/113
This gives 3.141592, and can itself be rememebered as “1-1-3-into-3-5-5,” with pairs of the first three odd numbers.
And, of course, God’s estimate: 3
Really! Check out 1 Kings 7:23, or 2 Chronicles 4:2.
Pi limericks
‘Tis a favorite project of mine
A new value of
I would fix it at 3
For it’s simpler, you see,
Than 3.14159…
If inside a circle a line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the line’s length is d
the circumference will be
d times 3.14159…
One last thought
Now I need a drink —
Alcoholic, of course —
After all these snippets
Involving precise mnemonics.
–Travis, Pi Day 2006
