How to use a Piem to Memorize Pi
How to use a Piem to Memorize Pi
The official world record holder for memorizing the digits of pi is Chao Lu, with 67,890 digits. There are higher but unverified claims. How do they do it? Several methods have been devised including using a Piem (a special poem written to encode the digits). However, for a piem to encode that many digits it would have to be 20 times as as long as ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)!
If you have more modest ambitions, we will explain below how to create a piem to memorize pi. The number of digits to be memorized is then limited only by your artistic ability!
Method
Piems are based on the use of Pilish. This is not really a language (as some others have described it), it is more a style of writing in which each digit of pi is represented only by the number of letters in the word. In this respect it is probably the easiest memory technique to use offering almost complete freedom with your written language, provided it is not based on pictograms – for which other techniques can be used.
For example, this piem written by Michael Shapiro encodes 30 digits:
Now I will a rhyme construct
By chosen words the young instruct.
Cunningly devised endeavor,
Con it and remember ever.
Widths of circle here you see.
Sketched out in strange obscurity.
3.141 592 653 589 793 238 462 643 383 279
Practical Issues of Memorizing Pi with Piems
The Importance of Truncation. When planning to memorize pi, it is a good idea to choose the cut-off point carefully. Truncation allows the piem to be extended in the future (to enable the recall of more digits of pi) without having encoded a rounded digit in the original and therefore needing a change of final word. Precision is preserved.
Structure, Meter and Style. The key aspect here is that unless you plan on unveiling it to the world, or even publishing it (as Mike Keith did with Cadaeic Cadenza encoding the first 3,834 digits of pi), then it really doesn’t matter how elegant it is, or whether it meets any of the regular criteria of good poetry. It only has to serve the purpose of helping you to recall the digits of pi.
The piem can be bawdy, serious, themed on nature, a journey, a lover, space or the sea. In fact, if you can associate imagery with the piem then that will help your memory too.
Of course it is fun to make a good job of it and have something that you would be happy to recite – at least amongst your friends, or in the shower.
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