There was a surprise in store for a man in Battambang on Sunday morning, when, woken suddenly from his slumbers by a carhorn outside his window, he started to recite the mathematical constant, Pi.
Moys Kenwood, 55, was a reasonable Math student at school, but nothing special. His mother taught him the Times Tables when he was 6 or 7, and they stuck; they have been useful ever since. Shopping trips have been a breeze, being able to tot up round about how much his bill is likely to be at the till. Logarithms, area and especially algebra, however, gave him problems until he forgot all about them at age 16.
It was a shock, then, when, on Sunday morning, he lifted his head from his pillow and told his wife:
"3.14."
She looked confused, but said nothing.
"3.1415926535," said Kenwood.
His wife had no time for this frivolity, and left the room. Kenwood, himself, was already 'seeing' a kaleidoscopic pattern surging through his mind. He went on:
"3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089986280348253421170 679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303
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8699843157337496488352927693282207629."
His wife had, by this time, had her breakfast, fed and bathed the children, done the washing and hung it out, been to the market, made and eaten lunch, had a short nap, painted the garden fence, changed little Norman's diaper, got a 'Steak Bake and vegetables' tea ready for everyone, and sat down at the table, waiting for her husband.
Amazingly, Kenwood had not only inadvertently broken the world record for reciting Pi by some distance, he also knew that the previous best was achieved by China's Lu Chao, who remembered 67,890 digits in 2005.
Knowing everyone was waiting to eat their tea, he asked his wife if he could "just run through the first few digits again", but she was having none of it!
"No, come on," she said, "get on with your pie."
