# Mats Bergsten is a genius



## rahulkadukar (Jan 23, 2011)

I don't know if many of you know this, but Mats Bergsten is a WR holder in Pi memorization, and not in the normal kind but there is a different type of Pi memorization.

*Everest Test*
This involves splitting the first 10,000 digits of Pi into groups of 5, making 2000 groups. In the test 50 groups are randomly read out, and the contestant has to say from memory which 5 numbers precede and succeed each of them. Mats is one of only 4 people in the world who can do this and at 17 mins and 39 secs he is the fastest.

I just wanted to confirm if this is the same Mats Bergsten. If yes then hats off to you sir


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## ben1996123 (Jan 23, 2011)

Yes, its the same person.


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## uberCuber (Jan 23, 2011)

ben1996123 said:


> Yes, its the same person.


 
^ this, and yes he is a genius


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 23, 2011)

Yes, it's the same person, and yes, he's a genius. Mats is the best!


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## Yes We Can! (Jan 23, 2011)

Yes, he's a genius.


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## Toad (Jan 23, 2011)

You are correct in stating that he is a genius.


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## Kynit (Jan 23, 2011)

Can you guess why he's so good at BLD?


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## Rune (Jan 23, 2011)

Yes said:


> Yes, he's a genius.



Repeat it yet some dozen of times and who knows: Mats may believe it!


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## cmhardw (Jan 23, 2011)

Wow, Mats I never knew you held that WR! That's absolutely amazing, congratulations!


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## Erzz (Jan 23, 2011)

There's no two groups that are the same? (ie there isn't two different times 17492 appears)


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## JonnyWhoopes (Jan 23, 2011)

Erzz said:


> There's no two groups that are the same? (ie there isn't two different times 17492 appears)


 
That would be an absolutely incredible feat, considering that only 50 groups are selected, and you have to recite the five digits before and after the groups.


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## MatsBergsten (Jan 23, 2011)

Erzz said:


> There's no two groups that are the same? (ie there isn't two different times 17492 appears)


 
Yes, there are some 24 groups or so (among the first 2000 (i.e 10000 decimals)).
At the test you could in that case choose either of the groups.
(The other WR was to juggle simultaneously as reciting decimals, but there are many
better jugglers in the cubing community, look at Mikes one handed bld solve while 
juggling with the other, that's juggling )

As to the silly statement of geniality it is just that, silly. I have a rather good memory
and am rather fluent with numbers. But cubing (blindfolded) is so much more fun than
reciting pi decimals. Fantastic memory is what I call Villes and Arons (and Daniel and Zane 
and Tim and.....). 

What I am a little proud of as to bld-cubing is keeping pace with almost all of you 
at the age of 61 (soon) while I at the same time is four to five times as slow at speedsolving. 

So, all in all, always fun that someone notices the pi efforts (I spent much time at learning
a lot of decimals), but geniality is something else.

edit: still, thanks Rahul


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## Ordos_Koala (Jan 23, 2011)

Erzz said:


> There's no two groups that are the same? (ie there isn't two different times 17492 appears)


 
well, it could be, but Pi is very much random sequence of nubmers so there are 100000 possible combinations in every of these groups... so when you have 2000 of them, i guess it's 1:50... maybe i made somewhere mistake (, but i think if it would be, they'd told him if it was the "first 17492" or "second 17492"  -> sry, didn't know Mats already commented :/ but still, guess that my math isn't wrong )


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## qqwref (Jan 23, 2011)

I think "geniality" usually refers to being nice, but I could be wrong.

The pi memorization thing is pretty impressive for sure, but I think it wouldn't be right to call someone a genius for that. Raw memory and intelligence are somewhat related, but when talking about someone who has spent many years practicing memory sports and digit memorization, it's pretty clear that their memorization skills are due to amazing dedication and practice rather than incredibly high natural intelligence.


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## Ordos_Koala (Jan 23, 2011)

Mats, i'm curious, if you learn it mechanicaly, then you repeat it all over again whole day, or if you have mnemonic for it?


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## MatsBergsten (Jan 23, 2011)

Ordos_Koala said:


> Mats, i'm curious, if you learn it mechanicaly, then you repeat it all over again whole day, or if you have mnemonic for it?


 
While learning pi decimals i thought memo techniques (like mnemonics) was a little like cheating,
as it then was the memory that was the main (or only) thing. So I just stuffed them in, five at a time.

While using memo for blindsolving, memo is not the end but just a means of the solving, so
here I use memo techniques (letter pairs and images and a little of rooms).


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## Kian (Jan 23, 2011)

qqwref said:


> I think "geniality" usually refers to being nice, but I could be wrong.


 
Well to me it's always meant that, too (which I think is what most people would associate it with), but upon research Mats did use it correctly. It can also pertain to being a genius.


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## Ordos_Koala (Jan 23, 2011)

Thanks, I really should start doing BLD. I tried today to memorize edges few times, but with no result  Maybe tomorrow...


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## cmhardw (Jan 23, 2011)

Mats I have a question about when they call the groups. Do the groups always start at a digit number that is a multiple of 5? For example:

3.14159 26*535 89*793 23846 26433

Could they ask you to identify the bolded group of numbers: 53589 and to give the five digits both before and after this group? Or would they only ask for you a group like the underlined group above? Either way this feat is very impressive, but I'm curious to the rules they use when calling a group of 5 digits to the memorizer.


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## qqwref (Jan 23, 2011)

It says there are 2000 5-digit groups, which I think implies that the groups are non-overlapping.


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## Mike Hughey (Jan 23, 2011)

qqwref said:


> The pi memorization thing is pretty impressive for sure, but I think it wouldn't be right to call someone a genius for that.



I agree with this entirely. I consider Mats a genius for a combination of many reasons, not just this.


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## pi.cubed (Jan 24, 2011)

That's amazing. Mats, do you have trouble practising your pi? Because to recite all 10000 digits would take many hours woudn't it? 

I also find it amazing you've done all of this with rote memorization. Remarkable.

I feel like I'm not worthy to have pi in my name.


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## MatsBergsten (Jan 24, 2011)

Kian said:


> Well to me it's always meant that, too (which I think is what most people would associate it with), but upon research Mats did use it correctly. It can also pertain to being a genius.


 
Aha. at first I did not understand qqwrefs note. It is not always easy to understand nuances when
you don't speak your native language. All in all I am then preferred to be known by my geniality (qqwref)
than my geniality (=genius) 

@Chris: the test we are talking about (the "Everest" test) only had groups starting at pos 5*n + 1.
Then someone invented another where the groups could start anywhere and even be groups
backwards, that was very much harder but also not particularly "fun".

@pi.cubed: I don't practice pi any more, I find cubing (and chess) much more fun (and competitive).
So I have forgotten lots of digits, still it is easier to relearn them for each time you do.
As to the time to recite them I was one of the fastest recaller, for two reasons I think:
as I did not use any mnemonics I did not have to "uncode" something to get the message (decimals).
Also because I practiced juggling, so I "had" to read fast before I dropped the balls. While setting
the pi/juggling WR it took 1:15 to 1:20 (I don't remember  exactly) for almost 10000 decimals,


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## Zane_C (Jan 24, 2011)

This is very impressive Mats, well done!


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## RCTACameron (Jan 24, 2011)

I remember when I was memorising pi (I only ever got to 37 digits), someone told me what the WR for memorising it was (approximately). I didn't realise it was Mats!


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## MatsBergsten (Jan 24, 2011)

RCTACameron said:


> I remember when I was memorising pi (I only ever got to 37 digits), someone told me what the WR for memorising it was (approximately). I didn't realise it was Mats!


 
It was not. I have never held the "regular" pi decimal reciting WR. I've never even been close.
But Hideako Tomoyori from Japan (who is also a cuber) has. 

I have two more "odd" pi WR:s, the Everest which Rahul happened to notice and then "Pi & Juggling".


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## freshcuber (Jan 24, 2011)

Quick google search told me the current pi reciting decimal WR is 100,000. Utterly astounding.


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## rahulkadukar (Jan 24, 2011)

MatsBergsten said:


> It was not. I have never held the "regular" pi decimal reciting WR. I've never even been close.
> But Hideako Tomoyori from Japan (who is also a cuber) has.
> 
> I have two more "odd" pi WR:s, the Everest which *Rahul happened to notice* and then "Pi & Juggling".



You are mentioned in the book "Alex's Adventures in Numberland", and I thought you must be the same guy and the author is simply impressed by your skills , so I thought I will add it here to the forum.


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## MatsBergsten (Jan 24, 2011)

rahulkadukar said:


> You are mentioned in the book "Alex's Adventures in Numberland", and I thought you must be the same guy and the author is simply impressed by your skills , so I thought I will add it here to the forum.


 
Aha again . I remember being "interviewed" by the author (via email) a couple of years 
back but I thought nothing more came out of it. Now I of course have to read/get that book .


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## TMOY (Jan 24, 2011)

Ordos_Koala said:


> well, it could be, but Pi is very much random sequence of nubmers so there are 100000 possible combinations in every of these groups... so when you have 2000 of them, i guess it's 1:50... maybe i made somewhere mistake


 Yes, you made a mistake. 1/50 is (approximately) the probability of having at least one of the 2000 5-dgits sequences being equal to some fixed sequence. The probability of having at least two of them equal to each other is much higher than that. (Yes it's couterintuitive, but it's true. It's called the birthday paradox.)


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## Mr Cubism (Jan 24, 2011)

Genius or good memory, anyway, I think we all would be pleased to have the developed skills from Mats 

Around the millenium (oooh, 11 years ago now...) I learned the first 1000 digits of pi myself(started with 100 digits but continued when I noticed that it was easier than I thought). It took about two months. And I didn´t wanted to memorize with "cheating" memory picture methods, just in the raw way. I put them in groups of two, three, four or five. The memo is close to remember a telephone number, you se patterns in it. Lets say you know 10 telephon numbers. Just put them together and suddenly you can rember 100 digits right away.

I have re-learned them a few times after almost forgetting everything, but now it was about 2 year ago since the last time. The cubing replaced it.


I think I will need a week or so to have everything back in the mind. It took me about 7 minutes to gabble 1 to 1000 and of couse it was easier with my eyes closed. No much for a need in daily life, but a good concentration thing. An extra effort was to couting backwards, that was challenging. :-/

Mats, you rules!


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## Rune (May 9, 2020)

MatsBergsten said:


> Aha. at first I did not understand qqwrefs note. It is not always easy to understand nuances when
> you don't speak your native language. All in all I am then preferred to be known by my geniality (qqwref)
> than my geniality (=genius)
> 
> ...


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