6-yr-old breaks Singapore's pi memorisation record, recites 1,560 digits in under 10 mins

Six-year-old Ishani Shanmugam broke the national record for memorising the most digits of pi by reciting the mathematical constant 1,560 decimal places, according to The Straits Times.

She outperformed memory coaches Sancy Suraj (who held the previous record with 1,505 numbers in 2018) and Wellon Chou (who held the record in 2013 with 1,380 digits) to earn a place in the Singapore Book of Records. Ishani calmly recited the pi digits in roughly 10 minutes while sitting in her living room on Wednesday (Oct 13), with personnel from the Singapore Book of Records validating the numbers.

Vennila Munusamy, 36, told Singapore media on Saturday, 16th October, that her mother's heart was hammering during the incident.  She said that " Ishani was cool as a cucumber. The Singapore Book of Records staff asked if she (Ishani) was nervous, but she replied, "I'm so excited, we can start immediately."

6-year-old registers herself in Singapore Book of Records

Munusamy was quoted as saying, "Ishani was able to read story books by herself — it was always one after another without stopping. We would show her flash cards of country flags and she would memorise all 195 of them." Then we realised she had an interest in science and geography. She would grasp the details of geographical TV programmes and explain them to us." Shanmugam said, "We never pushed her to do anything, we just want to hone her interests and we'll help her out in whatever she wants to pursue." 

Ishani, who attends PCF Sparkletots, could recite 409 digits of pi in September of last year. She did, however, inform her parents that she wished to learn more digits. 

Her father, Shanmugam V. S., 42, an investment bank tech manager, said he and his wife began her training in April by introducing a few additional numerals each day. "We are quite proud of her. We didn't expect her to get it right away because she needed to get every single digit accurately. We cried a few happy tears after she broke the record," he told Singapore media.

Vennila stated that she and her husband discovered Ishani had an excellent recall and a thirst for knowledge when she was two years old. "She wants to learn even more pi digits now, to add more digits to her record," Vennila continued. 

Rajveer Meena holds the current Guinness World Record for memorising the most decimal places of pi as a 21-year-old in 2015 at India's VIT University.

(with inputs from PTI)

Image: Vennila Munusamy/Facebook