Rising to the Pi challenge

A maths whizz memorised Pi to 45 decimal places to win a school competition.

Jessica Chen, 16, of Newark, memorised the digits to win a contest at the Sir William Robertson Academy, Welbourn.

The competition was part of a Number Day that raised £682 for the NSPCC.

Jessica learnt Pi, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, ahead of the competition to see how much of it she could remember.

The number, which is roughly 3.14, is a mathematical constant that has an infinite number of digits after its decimal point.

Jessica, a house captain and a school prefect, said: “We hadn’t been covering Pi in maths — I just decided to learn Pi in my own time.

“I wanted to take on the challenge to see if I could remember it.”

Jessica, who won a fruit pie, is studying maths and further maths at GCSE.

She learnt Pi in blocks of three or four numbers to make it easier for her to remember.

Luke Smith, a year-seven pupil, came second by memorising Pi to 37 decimal places.