Richard ElwesJun 21
Via Viz Magazine. https://shop.viz.co.uk/viz346bs
Show threadgjmJul 7

@richardelwes Many years ago I was at a maths conference. There was an initial meeting with everyone where they told us various admin things, including that the entry code for some building or other was 2143. "That'll be easy to remember," I said, "because it's the nearest integer to 22 pi^4". The person sitting next to me thought this was very strange.

((2143/22)^(1/4) is a startlingly good approximation to pi -- relative error is about 3x10^-10 -- found by Ramanujan.)

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@gjm @richardelwes Our seminar is often in a room numbered 1423. We remember it as the permutation room, but that's also how I would remember your room number.
Jul 7 at 4:40pmWeb
Show threadgjmJul 7
@11011110 @richardelwes For the avoidance of doubt, I never thought that anyone would actually remember "ah, I just need to compute pi^4 and multiply by 22"; obviously that's no more memorable than 2143 itself. My actual meaning was more along the lines of "it's the numerator in that approximation of Ramanujan's", but I thought it was funnier to say it the way I did.