Michael Hamann really likes numbers.

That became readily apparent on Saturday, when he recited 385 digits of pi from memory. It was part of a Pi Day celebration he organized in a Portland coffee shop, where all were encouraged to attempt to recite as many digits of pi as they could.

Pi Day celebrates the most famous number in mathematics — often rounded to 3.14 — on March 14. Math lovers celebrate the mathematical constant along with pizza pies and dessert pies.

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While he’s always had an interest in numbers, Hamann said he became even more fixated on them as a way to improve his memory. He chose pi, which is infinite and non-repeating, and worked his way up from a dozen digits to well into the hundreds.

“After a while, I had a hard time stopping thinking about pi,” Hamann said.

Since then, pi has played a big role in Hamann’s life. He met his wife, Naomi Hamann, on Mount Tabor as he scrawled pi digits on the ground with chalk. The two have even hosted pi-themed bike rides in Portland.

The husband-and-wife duo recently started Piological, “a recreational math company” designed to make the subject more approachable and fun. They’re hoping to publish a math workbook soon and work more with local Portland schools.

“I feel like there’s a lot of gatekeeping around math,” Naomi Hamann said. “So hopefully, with what we’re doing, people can have a fun, interactive way of dealing with mathematical issues.”

A couple dozen people gathered inside Tōv Coffee in Southeast Portland on Saturday afternoon to watch the handful of people brave enough to recite. For reference, the world record for reciting pi is more than 70,000 digits, which took more than 17 hours.

Liam Duckworth was able to recite more than 100 digits. The son of two mathematics professors, he remembered reading a comic book where a character attempted to memorize the numbers in pi. That kickstarted an obsession to replicate what he called “the most useless skill in the world.”

“I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use my pi knowledge for 15 years,” Duckworth said. “I was nervous I was going to trip up, but I did alright.”

Then it was Michael Hamann’s turn. His recitation had personality and there was a certain rhythm as he listed all of the numbers, almost as if he was reading poetry.

But a few minutes in, the audience — many of whom followed along with sheets of paper listing thousands of digits — shifted in their chairs. He had made a mistake. Hamann turned around and began to write each number as he said it out loud, starting over.

“Sometimes all the numbers begin to blend together,” he said.

After 15 minutes, he finally achieved 385 digits on his second try. He actually surpassed 500, but realized he had accidentally added an erroneous 5 somewhere in the middle. The audience was still impressed, and applauded when he finished.

“I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast yesterday and he got up to almost 500 digits,” said Barry Cohen, who watched the entire recitation. “Pretty impressive.”

Those mistakes served as an opportunity for Hamann to explain his philosophy on math, where mistakes should be encouraged as an opportunity to improve.

“What I think is right is to celebrate mistakes,” he said. “That’s great, because that means you’re trying and you’re learning.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/15/portlanders-recite-number-pi-day/