Hewlett High junior recites over 3,000 Pi digits

Reciting the digits of Pi — 3.14 — the number represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter is becoming an annual ritual for Hewlett High School junior Anthony Ginzburg.

Ginzburg recited 3,141 digits of Pi in just under 20 minutes in front of two math classes in the school’s auditorium on March 23.

“Hopefully next year I can break 3,000,” he told the Herald in 2021 — and he did break that goal this year. Ginzburg sets a goal each year to increase the number of digits he recites on world Pi Day — March 14.

This year, Ginzburg recited the numbers a little over a week after Pi Day due to a scheduling problem at his school. Two math classes witnessed the 20-minute recollection and had the opportunity to ask him questions afterwards.

He started memorizing Pi digits as an extra credit project in the sixth grade, where his first record was 421 numbers. Since then, he has added 2,720 numbers to the list in his memory.

“He started to challenge himself and do more and more and it’s so easy to him,” Ginzburg’s mother Tatyana said. “For me, it’s like — I don’t understand how he’s doing this.”

Although Ginzburg has ranked within the top 100 Pi ranking list in the world in 2021 and the top 25 in the United States, he doesn’t do this with an intention to beat any records.

“I do it to challenge myself,” Ginzburg said, “to see how far my mind can go.” To help him memorize, Ginzburg walks around his house and associates numbers with objects or spaces — he calls this technique ‘Memory Palace.’ 

Though he described the first 1,000 numbers of Pi to be “almost muscle memory”, as they are easy for him to recollect, he uses Memory Palace for the more recent numbers in his Pi list. 

“Mentally I walk around my house and sort of read off those numbers from those different places,” Ginzburg said. Splitting the digits into groups, practicing aloud and starting from the beginning if he makes a mistake are also ways Ginzburg memorizes Pi digits.

Ginzburg is currently taking multivariable calculus and is on the math team at school, where his teachers describe him as exceptional.

“Anthony is a highly intelligent, curious and intuitive student of mathematics,” multivariable calculus teacher Jeannette Zawitosky wrote in an email. “He is an absolute pleasure to teach and adds a lot to the classroom.”

Math Team adviser Steve Krieger agreed, explaining Ginzburg’s success on the math team: “[He] placed in the top 14th percent for all 11th graders in Nassau County and is the top math student for our high school,” Krieger said. “He is respectful and sociable.”