There are countless ways to memorize pi. Dr. Kenneth Shaw breaks up the digits into blocks of 7 or 10 and pretends they are phone numbers of famous mathematicians. Math teacher Joe Cox breaks them into blocks of 5 and creates scenarios involving sports figures. Some people remember sentences in which each word has a number of letters corresponding to the next digit ("How I want a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics..."). Other people make rhymes, recognize patterns in the digits, or, most difficult of all, just plain memorize the digits with brute force.

I use a system used by memory experts, which involves turning digits into consonants, and making words out of the consonants. This systems takes a little time and practice to learn, but the nice thing about it is once you've learned the system, you can apply it to memorizing any numbers: phone numbers, combinations, credit card or ID numbers, birthdays, and of course your favorite irrationals like pi, e, and the square root of 2.

To give you an idea of how powerful this system is, try this little exercise. We're going to link a series of images together. IMPORTANT: As you read each of these images, visualize the scene and imagine you are there.

First, think of a TREE.

In the branches of the tree are tied hundreds of rat TAILS. Gross, who tied those there?

You pull the tails down and toss them in a frying PAN. Mmmmm, listen to 'em sizzle!

You notice that the pan is actually made out of a giant SHELL. Strange...

The shell sprouts legs and runs off to go shopping at the MALL. Shells go shopping?

Did you visualize all that?

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