Fifteen-year-old Gaurav Rajav will not be receiving an Xbox 360 video game console this month. That's because the high school student, who hoped to recite 10,790 digits of Pi, and whose parents promised him the Xbox if he met that goal, could muster only enough intellectual stamina to correctly recite 8,784 numbers. "I'm kind of disappointed," he said, "but I guess I did OK." Sure, Gaurav, you did OK-if your goal was to remember 8,784 digits. But it wasn't, and there's a pretty large difference between 8,784 and 10,790. We doubt, for example, any of our subscribers would think it OK if Gadfly missed its publication goal by only 3,000 words. Or if, say, Congress missed balancing the federal budget by $3,000. Inexcusable. There's hope for Gaurav, though. His mother Seema offered to buy the video game system despite her son's mathematical meltdown. The young man refused, and he vowed to try again in May. Gadfly (who generally sticks to Pie-eating contests) wishes him well.
"This guy from Salem High does a number on pi," by Marquita Brown, Roanoke Times, March 15, 2006