History Main / MouthfulOfPi

A quick way to show that a character is a genius is to have him recite [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi pi]] to an absurd number of places. With its endless parade of decimal digits, π has both mystique and geek cred — it has its own [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day holiday,]] it's splashed across mugs and T-shirts, calculating 1–10 millions of digits of π is a very common way of testing your CPU's power, and it's honored by [[Film/{{Pi}} movies]] and [[http://keithschofield.com/pi/std.html songs.]] Most of us never memorize it past a few places, so anyone who can fire off a hundred surely must be a genius, right?

[[caption-width-right:350:''"The world's made up of numbers!"''[[note]]Pictured: 96 digits recited. Tapping the screen at this point produces another speech bubble containing 60 more for a total of 156 digits.[[/note]]]]

A quick way to show that a character is a genius is to have him recite [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi pi]] to an absurd number of places. With its endless parade of decimal digits, π has both mystique and geek cred — it has its own [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day holiday]], it's splashed across mugs and T-shirts, calculating 1–10 millions of digits of π is a very common way of testing your CPU's power, and it's honored by [[Film/{{Pi}} movies]] and [[http://keithschofield.com/pi/std.html songs]]. Most of us never memorize it past a few places, so anyone who can fire off a hundred surely must be a genius, right?

The truth is, only a handful of digits are needed for most applications — only 11 decimal places are needed to calculate the circumference of the Earth to a millimeter[[note]]And due to the effects of General Relativity, you would get the wrong answer anyway[[/note]], while only 42 are needed to find the circumference of a circle the size of the entire universe to within less than the diameter of a single proton. There's not much point in memorizing a hundred places other than to [[GoodWithNumbers show off]]. (And indeed, after that many digits you can use whatever ''wrong'' digits you want because the math will still be pretty darn close — though you'll have a lot of mathematicians gritting their teeth…) For obvious reasons, this is a go-to OverlyLongGag.
For reference, here's a [[http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/031208/how-many-digits-of-pi-do-you-know.gif handy guide]], and [[http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=1777 another]].

* [[http://www.cadaeic.net/cadintro.htm Cadaeic Cadenza]], a pi mnemonic taken to 14 chapters and 3835 digits, containing "Pilish" imitations of ''Literature/TheRaven'', ''Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'', etc. And then the author went [[UpToEleven even further]] with ''Literature/NotAWake'', which encodes over ''ten thousand'' digits.

** The Doctor reels off the ''[[UpToEleven square root of pi]]'' to thirty decimal places[[note]]1.772453850905516027298167483341[[/note]] in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E10Midnight "Midnight"]]. And the possessed woman who's [[StopCopyingMe copying everything he says]] recites it too. At the same time. ''Out of sync by several digits.'' By now everyone's realized that something is very wrong with the woman, but it's at this point when they start getting suspicious of the Doctor, too. Completely PlayedForDrama.

* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'', Sunny can be heard singing the digits of pi before a Mission Briefing.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Sliders}}'', Quinn Mallory recites pi to 13 places while playing a full-contact trivia/ball game on a giant Othello board.

'''Sam:''' Oh, I can remember the number. [[ComedicHeroicSociopathy I wanna write myself a reminder to smother you with a pillow in your sleep.]]

->''"I could go to Vegas. Learn to play Black Jack. Memorize four hundred fifty two consecutive digits of pi, a few hundred measly cards are easy."''

Inversely, a quick way to show that a character is stupid is have him not know what pi is at all: [[IsItSomethingYouEat "Apple or cherry?"]]

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Monty}}'', when Robotman disappears, he is replaced by an alien human hybrid whose full name is 3.1415..., but his friends call him Mr Pi. Because the name was given to him as an insult he later changes it to Dave.

* Subverted in Spanish comedy film ''Toc Toc''. One of the characters has a very bad case of arithmomania but when asked about Pi he just says "3.1416" (altough he lampshades that he is refraining himself)

* In the novel version of Carl Sagan's ''Literature/{{Contact}}'' it is discovered that at a particular distant point of the base 11 expression of pi a long sequence of 0 and 1's occurs that forms a bitmap of a circle. (Incidentially, pi is believed to be a normal number, which means that any sequence of numbers will eventually occur, with a frequency that corresponds to its random probability.)

* Colin from ''Literature/AnAbundanceOfKatherines'' by Creator/JohnGreen memorized the first 99 digits of pi when he was ten by making up a 99-word sentence in which then first letter of each word corresponds to a digit of pi (a=1, b=2, etc.).

* As noted in the page quote, Fred from ''Series/{{Angel}}'' has memorized 452 digits of pi. In the same scene the quote comes from, she scares away a homeless guy by reciting it.

* An episode of ''Series/ClarissaExplainsItAll'' featured the title character and her brother on a game show, where he blows the question "What is pi?" with the standard flavors-of-pi mistake. Since he prides himself on being a child prodigy, and hates when people prove he's not, this sends him into a period of stunned shock...from which he resurfaces in time to interrupt his sister and prevent her from winning them the game.

** The same source says that one easy way to confuse a modron (a far more common resident of Mechanus) is to ask it to define Pi. It will ''eventually'' give up, but trying to do so should distract it long enough for you to maybe get at something it's guarding or sneak something past it. (This usually only works on the less-intelligent ones.)

* Minamimoto from ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' can not only recite Pi to 156 places, but use it as [[FormulaicMagic a massive attack]] so strong that [[spoiler:CrystalDragonJesus had to retreat to another universe]]. "Pi-Face" is also his nickname, and his HP from the two different times you fight are 3141 and 5926.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Violet}}'', Julia once promised two men that she'd sleep with whoever could recite the most digits. They took turns reciting hundreds of digits, but in the end she went with a guy who claimed he could generate random numbers.

-->'''Brain:''' The ratio of the circumference a circle to its diameter having a value of eight decimal places of 3.14159265. But ask me something difficult, Pinky.

* In ''Westernanimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'', Jimmy stops his [[WellIntentionedExtremist Nanobots]]' second reign of terror by tricking them into deciphering the value of Pi. After a stressful read-through of all the digits, they seize-up and overload on "five". He got the idea from seeing his BumblingDad with a lot of [[TrademarkFavoriteFood pie]].

** Inverted in Moist's previous adventure, ''Literature/GoingPostal''. The Post Office's old sorting engine was designed by the infamous Bergholt Stuttley "Bloody Stupid" Johnson, who decided that pi was untidy, what with all that "never ending" nonsense, and therefore designed the crucial cog of the engine to have a pi that was exactly 3. This was all well and good until they started getting letters that hadn't been written yet, and then letters that would have gotten written if the writer hadn't written a different letter instead, and then letters that would never have been written in this particular leg of the Trousers of Time but were starting to bleed over from other legs because the engine was hurting for things to sort.

* In ''Anime/DigimonAdventure2020'', on episode 38, Joe Kido recites a bunch of things, including [[https://imgur.com/bJ5eL2p the first '''41''' digits of pi]], to.....combat Mephistomon's ''mind control chant'' on some mook Digimon. Somehow, it works.

* Grant has 3.14 as his "prisoner number" in ''Series/{{Mythbusters}}'''s "Prison Escape" myth.

* In ''Film/NightAtTheMuseumBattleOfTheSmithsonian'' the protagonist and his "girlfriend" have to solve a riddle to which the answer is Pi (something about the heart of the tomb of the pharaoh). They were helped by Bobblehead Einsteins, who proceed to tell them the (supposedly) correct combination. The protagonist constantly mixes them up, but the girlfriend remembers the numbers correctly. Apparently pi is less than ten digits long.

'''Sam:''' Oh, I can remember the number. [[HeroicComedicSociopathy I wanna write myself a reminder to smother you with a pillow in your sleep.]]

* During one of [=SmallAnt's=] ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' [[https://youtu.be/DWr0aj-xwVQ streams]], he mentions that he tried memorizing pi out of boredom while he was in school, and recites it to 40 decimal places to prove he still knows it. He then claims it's really not that impressive or useful to know, and jokes that the ''real'' geniuses are the people [[BoringButPractical who just use the pi button on their calculator instead]].

** In one cartoon, Strong Bad receives an email that contains [[http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html a computer virus]] that quickly takes over and messes up the website. One character finds himself in [[ShowWithinAShow an issue]] of WebAnimation/TeenGirlSquad. What is the issue number? It is "3.14159265and the rest"!

* UsefulNotes/RichardFeynman stated that he wanted to memorize the first 761 digits of pi because at that point, there is a sequence of six 9's so he could recite the numbers to there, then go "999999...and so on." "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_point That point]]" was named in his honor afterwards. DouglasHofstadter told the same anecdote. This may just be a genius thing.

* Parodied by [[Disney/{{Tangled}} Rapunzel]] in ''Webcomic/PocketPrincesses''. [[http://amymebberson.tumblr.com/post/96102973049/pocket-princesses-117-book-learnin-please She can recite pie to 4,256 fillings]].