Man Memorizes 14,000 Digits of Euler’s Number

Photo: Pittigrilli via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0 UNIVERSAL)

Euler’s number, denoted as e, is a mathematical constant approximately equal to 2.71828. As the basis of natural logarithms, it’s fundamental in mathematics, especially calculus. Much like π, to keep it simple, people only use a handful of digits when working with it, but as of December 2020, up to 31,415,926,535,897 digits are known.

While mathematicians can surely name several digits by heart, an Indian man named Deepu V saw a challenge and set out to break the Guinness World Record for most decimal places of Euler’s number memorized. To do so, he learned thousands of these numbers to test his extraordinary memory.

For his record-breaking attempt, the 33-year-old was blindfolded, and his ears were checked to ensure he had no way of cheating. According to the rules set by Guinness World Records, any mistakes or pauses longer than 15 seconds result in disqualification. However, he turned out to be unaffected by these guidelines. Deepu V took only 49 minutes to recall 14,000 digits, surpassing the previous record of 10,122.

Ever since he was a kid, Deepu V has possessed the ability to memorize numbers easily. For example, he knows over 500 phone numbers by heart and once set a national record by reciting 2,000 digits of pi faster than any other challenger.

The record-breaker credits his “tabular” method of memorization for his success after he spent four months preparing for the record attempt.

He explains his technique: “In the table there are 10 columns and 20 rows. I added five digits in each column, thus in a column of one full row, there are 50 numbers. And with 20 rows on a page there will be a total of 1,000 digits. Likewise, in 14 pages I was able to include 14,000 digits.” He also recorded himself and watched it back to catch any mistakes he made.

Deepu V, from India, took only 49 minutes to break the Guinness World Record for the most decimal places of Euler’s number memorized. To do so, he recited 14,000 of these numbers to test his extraordinary memory.

Photo: Guinness World Records

h/t: [Oddity Central]

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