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Broke her own national pi record: Susanne Hippauf on Frankfurt.
Photo: Lars Penning / dpa
A new record was set at the German championship in reciting the circle number Pi in Emden.
The Frankfurt memory artist Susanne Hippauf managed to recite the number from her head to 18,026 decimal places, breaking her own national record by more than 2,500 places.
It took the policewoman three hours and five minutes to do this.
“This is an incredible result,” said organizer Jan van Koningsveld.
The competition, which lasted from Friday to Saturday, is unique in Germany and there is no comparable event known in the rest of Europe.
42 participants in competition
The competition took place in Emden for the seventh time.
According to the organizers, 42 participants tried this year.
The rules are very simple: the participants count as many decimal places of the number pi as they can from their memory without any help.
An error must be corrected immediately.
The time between counting the next number cannot exceed one minute.
Hippauf learns with loci technology
This year's winner, Hippauf, uses the so-called loci technique for learning.
Numbers are linked to places and people.
She always includes prominent people: Kai Pflaume at the sunset on Table Mountain in South Africa or ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel's husband, Joachim Sauer, on the island of Lanzarote.
Loci is a Latin word meaning places.
“I had read a book about memory techniques and was able to remember a lot relatively quickly, which I really enjoyed,” said Hippauf in the run-up to the competition.
The competition was held as part of International Pi Day, celebrated by math lovers worldwide on March 14.
According to the American spelling, the date is 3-14 and describes the first digits of Pi. The current international record holder comes from India and has managed to memorize the circle number to more than 70,000 digits.
jpa/dpa