Forty-five thousand places
The entry on the ranking list is spare: name, country, 45,000 digits, the date of 25 March 2013, and a note reading six hours. That last figure is the one that gives the attempt its shape. Six hours for 45,000 digits works out at roughly 125 digits a minute sustained across the whole session, which is close to two a second without pause.
Pi has no pattern to lean on. The sequence is not compressible, so a recitation of this length is the retrieval of tens of thousands of arbitrary symbols in a fixed order, with no internal logic available to recover a lost place. A single unrecoverable slip ends the attempt at whatever digit it occurs.
Where it sits on the list
The Pi World Ranking List's upper reaches are a short document. Suresh Kumar Sharma of India holds first place with 70,030 digits, set on 21 October 2015. Rajveer Meena, also of India, is second with 70,000 digits from 21 March 2015. Chao Lu of China is third with 67,890, set as long ago as 20 November 2005.
Dwivedi is fourth with his 45,000. Below him are Krishan Chahal of India on 43,000 from 2006, Hiroyuki Goto of Japan on 42,195 from 1995, Hideaki Tomoyori of Japan on 40,000 from 1987 and Rajan Mahadevan of India on 31,811 from 1981. Four of the top five entries belong to Indian reciters.
A very long-lived table
The dates on the list are the detail most readers miss. The seventh-placed attempt dates from 1987 and the eighth from 1981, which means two recitations from the 1980s still sit inside the all-time top eight. This is not a discipline where records fall every season.
That slow turnover is what makes Dwivedi's position durable. An attempt from 2013 that remains fourth more than a decade later has not been overtaken by a generation of better-trained competitors, because the number of people willing to spend years preparing for a single six-hour recitation is very small in any decade.
What is documented — and what is not
The firm facts are the figure of 45,000 digits, the date of 25 March 2013, the listed duration of six hours, the country of India and the fourth-place ranking. All of them come from the Pi World Ranking List itself, which is the specialist register that maintains these standings.
Much is absent. The list carries a rules page that was not retrieved for this record, so the verification procedure behind the entry is not described here. Nor does the list give Dwivedi's age, birth year, city or occupation, say where the recitation took place, name the officials who observed it, or record anything about him before or since. Those gaps are stated rather than guessed at.
Why the rates differ so widely
Comparing the notes on the list reveals something the ranking itself does not explain. Dwivedi's 45,000 digits are listed at six hours. Manuel Vergara Vial of Chile is recorded at 20,000 digits in two hours and fifty-seven minutes, a similar pace. Paul Hearding of the United States is recorded at 30,448 digits over twenty-seven hours and forty-three minutes, a pace roughly seven times slower.
The list does not state whether those durations were measured the same way, whether breaks were included, or what checking procedure applied in each case. The safest reading is that the digit count is the ranked quantity and the time is a note attached to it, and that is how this page treats both figures.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gaurav Raja | United States | Reciting 10,980 digits of pi at 15 | Age 15 |
| Sudhir Dwivedi | India | Reciting 45,000 decimal places of pi | — |
| Luca Vadacca | Italy | Reciting 22,801 decimal places of pi | — |
| Manuel Vergara Vial | Chile | Reciting 20,000 decimal places of pi | — |
| Mamta Koona | India | Reciting 10,400 digits of pi | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- 45,000 digits of pi recited on 25 March 2013, listed at six hours (Pi World Ranking List)
- Ranked fourth all-time on that list
- Four of the list's top five entries are held by reciters from India
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- The list's verification rules were not retrieved for this record
- No age, birth year, city or occupation is published in this source
- No location, organiser or official observer for the attempt is named
Questions people ask about Sudhir Dwivedi
How many digits of pi did Sudhir Dwivedi recite?
Forty-five thousand, on 25 March 2013, in a listed time of six hours.
Where does that rank?
Fourth all-time on the Pi World Ranking List, behind Suresh Kumar Sharma, Rajveer Meena and Chao Lu.
Who holds the pi record?
Suresh Kumar Sharma of India tops the list with 70,030 digits, set on 21 October 2015.
How old is Sudhir Dwivedi?
No source in this record gives his age or birth year. The ranking list publishes names, countries, digit counts and dates only.
How was the recitation verified?
The ranking list maintains a rules page that was not retrieved for this record, so the verification procedure is not described here.
Is 45,000 digits a world record?
No. It is fourth on the list. The top three recitations are all above 67,000 digits.
Is Sudhir Dwivedi on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article was confirmed in the sources gathered for this page. The source used here is the Pi World Ranking List.
Where is Sudhir Dwivedi now?
No source in this record says. The documented trail is his entry on the ranking list.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Dwivedi’s story?
How many digits of pi did Sudhir Dwivedi recite?
Where does he rank all-time?
How long did the listed attempt take?
Sources
- Pi World Ranking List – Pi — Pi World Ranking List
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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