Friday, April 8, 2011
Longest Pi Chain: Monroe students sets world record (Video)
MONROE, CT, USA -- In celebration of Pi Day, Masuk High School students, with help from local preschoolers, assembled a pi paper chain made of 75,000 links, using a different color for each of the ten digits of pi -
setting the new world record for the
Longest Pi Chain.
 Photo: In celebration of Pi Day, Masuk High School students, with help from local preschoolers, made The World's Longest Pi Chain. Photo: Autumn Driscoll (enlarge photo)
The previous Guinness world record for the Longest Pi Chain has 65,000 links.
Guinness World Records also recognized the longest paper chain by an individual: it measures 327.1 m (1,073 ft 1.93 in) long and was made by Christopher Potts (UK) in Kimberworth, Rotherham.
When stretched out, the chain is more than a mile long, said Mary Ahlers, head of the high school math department.
"I knew pi was long, but I never knew it was this long," sophomore Austin Vuchla, 15, said.
Pi is an irrational number that represents the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Its decimal representation never ends or repeats. Mathematicians have thus far computed 5 trillion digits of the decimal expression.
Different shades of colored paper represented different numbers on the paper pi chain.
Video: World's Longest Pi Chain
About 30 students moved the chain from the library to the school gymnasium on a large tarp. They then laid it out in a circle formation, wrapping it around itself until it was several layers thick.
Related world records:
Longest Pi Chain: Qatar International School
Most digits of pi calculated: Shigeru Kondo and Alexander Yee
Youngest person to discover a supernova: 10-Year-Old Kathryn Gray
Longest genome ever discovered: The Paris japonica
Largest
periodic table of elements: Fossil Ridge students
Longest
model of a DNA gene: Huddersfield University
Friday, April 8, 2011 |
