Marcia Ann Surya, an Indonesian child, managed to name 422 digits of pi in 1 minute. This set a new world record. The previous world record for this was 280 digits in 1 minute. This activity was held yesterday, Saturday, May 24, 2025 at UPI with UPI mathematics professors, Prof. H. Turmudi Ph.D and Prof. Dr. Nurjanah as judges. The time keeper was sports teacher Nafsiah Purba and UPI lecturer Regi M.Sc. This historic event was also attended by the elected rector of UPI 2025-2030 Prof. Didi Sukyadi and UPI Vice Rector Prof. Amir Machmud.
It is not easy to do what Marcia did. This requires the ability to remember (see patterns), good motor coordination between the brain and mouth, speed of pronouncing words, and strong concentration. The ability to see patterns is one of the 8 types of intelligence proposed by Howard Gardner. Marcia initially learned to see this pattern from the patterns in the GASING method, such as the square pattern of 2-digit numbers, 3-digit numbers, etc. After that, she practiced seeing patterns from various numbers.
In a talk show, Jerome Polin once gave her about 50 random numbers, then she was given time to see the numbers… And Marcia in about 5 minutes was able to find a pattern to remember these numbers. The ability to see this pattern is very much needed, because nature is created through unique patterns. Various physics formulas are found based on these natural patterns. Various biological events such as cross-breeding, cloning, etc. are also based on these natural patterns.