The Faculty of Economic Sciences and Information Technology at the Vaal Triangle Campus of the North-West University joined the global community of Math enthusiasts in celebrating Pi Day on 14 March 2013 by hosting a Pi Matrix World Memory Record attempt by Grandmaster Kevin Horsley.
This attempt has been dubbed the ‘Everest of memory tests’ and requires the memorizer not only to know the actual order of the first 10 000 digits of Pi, but also to know the digits in the correct order from anywhere in the sequence. A panel of five testers called out 250 Pi digits and in return Horsley had to recall 500 digits (five before and five after).
Horsely, a South African native, set the new world record with 16 minutes 38 seconds, beating the previous record holder, Mats Bergesten of Sweden, who has been holding the world record since 2008 at 17 minutes 39 seconds. Horsely also beat his own record of 39 minutes, which he attained in 1999.
To date, Horsley is one of the only four people in the world that has ever been able to perform such a feat.
Previous record holders are Philip Bond (UK) who did 53 minutes in 1994 and 29 minutes 51 seconds in 2004, Jan Harms (Germany) who recorded 20 minutes 30 seconds in 2007,
On the 14th March 2013 (Pi day), Grand Master of Memory, Kevin Horsley, beat the World record of 17 min 39 sec, with no errors.
The record is recognised by the International Federation of Memory Sports and by the Book of Mental World Records.
In October 2011, Kevin did the same here in Botswana at the University of Botswana to a small crowd that had attended the launch of the Bizkid program. The event was graced by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dorcus Makgatho-Malesu. This was at the invitation of his speaking colleague and professional speaker, Moshe Seloko of Bizkid.
“I have known Kevin for a while now and he is the man who encouraged me to leave my formal job to start up my own. He has been supportive, as we all saw him come to support our program here in the country,” Seloko said of Horsley.
Seloko says that they are working on logistics to bring Kevin back to Botswana.
“After breaking the world record, we are in agreement once again for him to come and showcase his skill here as well as hold talks with some business, community leaders and government officials. We are still working on finding the right time, but it’s going to be this year,” Seloko mused.
Horsley is a professional speaker and assists organisations in improving their learning, motivation, creativity and thinking.
In all his years of research into the possibilities of the human mind, and working with different companies, he has found that there is a massive gap between understanding information and using information. What he does is share key thinking tools and accelerated learning methods to close this gap.
