10-year-old recites pi to 220 decimal places as part of maths day celebrations

A 10-year-old schoolboy has recited the number pi to a massive 220 decimal places.

Charley Thomas achieved his feat during a school assembly which celebrated pi.

Pi is the number you get when you divide a circle’s circumference by its diameter.

The first digits of pi, 3.14, are well known – but the number is infinitely long.

Extending the known sequence of digits in pi is very difficult because the number follows no set pattern.

Charley, who attends Wycliffe Preparatory School in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire said he had been rehearsing for a week, memorising all 220 decimal places.

“I’m not very good at standing up and doing something in front of people so I was a bit nervous at assembly,” he said.

“I had rehearsed at home and knew I could get to 220 places. I really like maths.”

Pi is used in engineering, physics, supercomputing and space exploration – because its value can be used in calculations for waves, circles and cylinders.

“This is an incredible achievement and one that no Wycliffe pupil has done before,” said headmaster Adrian Palmer.

“It is fitting that on the same day Emma Haruka Iwao, a Google employee from Japan, calculated the value of the number pi to a new world record length of 31 trillion digits, far past the previous record of 22 trillion.

“Charley received a standing ovation for his efforts in assembly and it was so richly deserved.”

A range of pi activities and challenges were organised for pupils to mark Pi Day of March 14 – “3.14” in American date notation.

These included creating pi art, writing nonsense verse in “PiLish” and finding evidence of circular buildings.