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comment by wasoxygen
wasoxygen  ·  2184 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: April 4, 2018

March 14 is some kind of party day in elementary school math class. The kid came home talking about it and was not terribly impressed that I was able to rattle off 15 digits from memory. He repeated a half-dozen back to me then added a few more while I watched. He still had them the next day and had soon caught up with me, so I looked up my old practice tool and we have been working on it over breakfast.

I changed my phone lock screen to an image of the first 100 digits and have gotten up to 60 pretty reliably, but I think he's ahead. I said I would match him up to 100, then I'm going to change the image to some poetry or something useful.

The year MDCLXVI was crazy. People were expecting the end of the world in 1666, and the world delivered.

London burned, the Messiah converted to Islam, and the plague ragaved Europe; "citizens walked on the street with a mask shaped as a bird beak, filled with spices and aromatic herbs to alleviate the stench."

Meanwhile Newton invented the calculus. Annus horribilis, annus mirabilis.