10-year-old 'Young Einstein' recites Pi to 258 decimals live on TV

A young school boy has left TV viewers hailing him "Young Einstein" after he recited Pi to 258 decimal places live on Good Morning Britain.

Charley Thomas appeared on the UK breakfast show after setting a record by reciting the number to 220 decimal places during an assembly at Wycliffe Preparatory School in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire, just days ago.

The 10-year-old didn't flinch when rattling off the tricky number and has since received praise online by stunned views.

One tweeted: "Wow! I'm at the age now I can just about remember my phone number! Well done Charley."

Another posted: "Charley you were FAB, so impressed with your memory for all those numbers and well done for smashing your previous record."

While the first digits of Pi are pretty well known as being 3.14, the number is infinitely long and is the result of dividing a circle's circumference by its diameter.

The number followers no pattern and reciting its sequence can be very difficult because of this.

The young boy received lots of online praise. Photo / Twitter

Thomas explained to Good Morning Britian that he learned the number in blocks of 10 and was rehearsing for many weeks prior to the school assembly.

"If I'm doing it swiftly, it takes just under 2 minutes," he said. "I learn them in blocks of 10. Every block of 10 is a couple of seconds. But we've timed it to see if it's too long to do now."

The presenters Susanna Reid, Charlotte Hawkins and Piers Morgan were left stunned by the young boy. Morgan described his skill as "one of the most impressive things he had ever seen".

Speaking of his achievement, Thomas said: "I'm not very good at standing up and doing something in front of people so I was a bit nervous at assembly.

"I had rehearsed at home and knew I could get to 220 places. I really like maths."

His school's headmaster Adrian Palmer said: "This is an incredible achievement and one that no Wycliffe pupil has done before.

"It is fitting that (it's) on the same day Emma Haruka Iwao, a Google employee from Japan, calculated the value of the number Pi to a new world record length of 31 trillion digits, far past the previous record of 22 trillion.

"Charley received a standing ovation for his efforts in assembly and it was so richly deserved."