Remember those peculiar constrained poems and mnemonics for π and stuff? Well, I've found a few more. Exciting, eh?
Here's one in French:
Que j'aime à faire apprendre un nombre utile aux sages!
Immortel Achimède ariste ingénieur,
Qui de ton jugement peut priser la valuer?
Pour moi, ton problème eut de pareils avantages.
And in German:
Dir, O Held, o alter Philosoph, du Riesen Genie!
Wie viele Tausende bewundern Geister,
Himmlisch wie du und göttlich!
Noch reiner in Aeonen
Wird das uns strahlen,
Wie im lichten Morgenrot!
And just when you thought to yourself - will this never end? - here's some in Greek (by N. Hatzidakis, 1924; and it's murder getting all those accents, I can tell you):
'Aεì ó Θεòσ ó Μεγασ γεωμετρεî
τò χυχλου μηχοσ ǐνα óρíση διαμετρω,
παρηγαγεν αριθμòν απεραντον,
χαì ǒν, φευ, ουδεποτε ολον θνητοì θα ευρωσι
which, in case you are wondering, means:
God the Great is the eternal Geometrician.
In order to define the perimeter of a circle using its diameter,
He has produced an infinite number,
The whole of which, alas, mortal men will never discover.
(Just count the letters of each word in each of the languages - except the English translation, of course - and you'll have a decimal expansion of π.)
- From Tefcros Michaelides' Pythagorean Crimes.
(See other mnemonics here.)
Here's one in French:
Que j'aime à faire apprendre un nombre utile aux sages!
Immortel Achimède ariste ingénieur,
Qui de ton jugement peut priser la valuer?
Pour moi, ton problème eut de pareils avantages.
And in German:
Dir, O Held, o alter Philosoph, du Riesen Genie!
Wie viele Tausende bewundern Geister,
Himmlisch wie du und göttlich!
Noch reiner in Aeonen
Wird das uns strahlen,
Wie im lichten Morgenrot!
And just when you thought to yourself - will this never end? - here's some in Greek (by N. Hatzidakis, 1924; and it's murder getting all those accents, I can tell you):
'Aεì ó Θεòσ ó Μεγασ γεωμετρεî
τò χυχλου μηχοσ ǐνα óρíση διαμετρω,
παρηγαγεν αριθμòν απεραντον,
χαì ǒν, φευ, ουδεποτε ολον θνητοì θα ευρωσι
which, in case you are wondering, means:
God the Great is the eternal Geometrician.
In order to define the perimeter of a circle using its diameter,
He has produced an infinite number,
The whole of which, alas, mortal men will never discover.
(Just count the letters of each word in each of the languages - except the English translation, of course - and you'll have a decimal expansion of π.)
- From Tefcros Michaelides' Pythagorean Crimes.
(See other mnemonics here.)
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