59.0°,
Mostly Cloudy Hewlett High School sophomore knows his pi digits
Pi, 3.14, is the ratio of the circumference of any circle to the diameter of that circle. Regardless of the circle’s size, this ratio will always equal pi. March 14 is recognized across the world as Pi Day and honors the mathematical constant.
One day after this year’s Pi Day, Hewlett resident Anthony Ginzburg, a Hewlett High School sophomore, stood in his family’s living room and recited 2,500 digits of pi. Ginzburg is now tied for 81st in the world after his feat. Pi can be extended 31.4 trillion decimal places based on the most recent calculations.
In the sixth grade, Ginzburg first felt the pull of the challenge as a teacher assigned recitation of the digits for extra credit. He did 421. “So, really at first it just started out as a fun thing for school,” he said, not long after completing the 2,500-digit recitation that was recorded by
Benny Gross, director of operations and chief innovations officer at the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway. “It’s something I enjoy doing,” Ginzburg added.
He does not spend all year memorizing. Typically, Ginzburg said he begins in February and has added numbers every year.
He practices and practices and does start over from the beginning after making a mistake using what Ginzburg called his “memory palace” he associates specific things with the numbers and splits the digits into groups and moves on from there adding numbers. “I do think better, the more you do something the better you are going to be at it,” he said.
“He is a very smart kid, he’s always challenging himself, this takes him out of his comfort zone,” said Gross who became acquainted with Ginzburg as he previously attended HAFTR.
Ginzburg’s mother, Tatyana Ginzburg, is astonished every time her son has added another group of numbers to his already staggering total. “I am amazed all the time when I’m helping him every time I say oh my God,” she said, adding yes, Anthony has a good memory. “It’s unbelievable, I think it’s very much like gymnastics for his memory and good exercise for his brain.”
Tatyana knows excellence and gymnastics. As Tatyana Yasinskaya, she was a world-class gymnast. On the national acrobatics team of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, she was the USSR gymnastics champion in 1977, captured the World Cup and was European champion, both in 1978.
Will he do it again? “Hopefully next year I can break 3,000, Ginzburg said. “I see numbers everywhere. Everything is built by numbers. Doing this makes me feel like I get to pull the curtain back and see what life is all about and what’s it built from.”
