Related Research Articles
The number π is a mathematical constant. Originally defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, it now has various equivalent definitions and appears in many formulas in all areas of mathematics and physics. It is approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes spelled out as "pi". It is also called Archimedes' constant.
The mnemonic peg system, invented by Henry Herdson is a memory aid that works by creating mental associations between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion that will later be applied to to-be-remembered information. Typically this involves linking nouns to numbers and it is common practice to choose a noun that rhymes with the number it is associated with. These will be the pegs of the system. These associations have to be memorized one time and can be applied repeatedly to new information that needs to be memorized.
Hafiz, literally meaning "guardian" or "memorizer", depending on the context, is a term used by Muslims for someone who has completely memorized the Quran. Hafiza is the female equivalent.
Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. Mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall items such as experiences, names, appointments, addresses, telephone numbers, lists, stories, poems, pictures, maps, diagrams, facts, music or other visual, auditory, or tactical information.
Simon Plouffe is a mathematician who discovered the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula which permits the computation of the nth binary digit of π, in 1995.
Hans Eberstark was an Austrian linguist, translator, and mental calculator.
Piphilology comprises the creation and use of mnemonic techniques to remember a span of digits of the mathematical constant π. The word is a play on the word "pi" itself and of the linguistic field of philology.
In cognitive psychology, chunking is a process by which individual pieces of an information set are broken down and then grouped together. A chunk is a collection of basic familiar units that have been grouped together and stored in a person's memory. These chunks are able to be retrieved more easily due to their coherent familiarity. It is believed that individuals create higher order cognitive representations of the items within the chunk. The items are more easily remembered as a group than as the individual items themselves. These chunks can be highly subjective because they rely on an individuals perceptions and past experiences, that are able to be linked to the information set. The size of the chunks generally range anywhere from two to six items, but often differ based on language and culture.
Daniel Tammet is an English essayist, novelist, poet, translator, and autistic savant. His 2006 memoir, Born on a Blue Day, about his life with Asperger syndrome and savant syndrome, was named a "Best Book for Young Adults" in 2008 by the American Library Association Young Adult Library Services magazine. His second book, Embracing the Wide Sky, was one of France's best-selling books of 2009. His third book, Thinking in Numbers, was published on 16 August 2012 by Hodder & Stoughton in the United Kingdom and on 30 July 2013 by Little, Brown and Company in the United States and Canada. Mishenka, his first novel, was published in France and Quebec in 2016. His books have been published in over 20 languages. He was elected in 2012 to serve as a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
The title mnemonist, derived from the term mnemonic, refers to an individual with the ability to remember and recall unusually long lists of data, such as unfamiliar names, lists of numbers, entries in books, etc. The duration of superior retention can be minutes, hours, days, or decades. Mnemonists may have superior innate ability to recall or remember, or may use techniques such as the method of loci.
Akira Haraguchi, a retired Japanese engineer, is known for memorizing and reciting digits of pi.
In psychology and neuroscience, memory span is the longest list of items that a person can repeat back in correct order immediately after presentation on 50% of all trials. Items may include words, numbers, or letters. The task is known as digit span when numbers are used. Memory span is a common measure of short-term memory. It is also a component of cognitive ability tests such as the WAIS. Backward memory span is a more challenging variation which involves recalling items in reverse order.
A sequence of six 9's occurs in the decimal representation of the number pi, starting at the 762nd decimal place. It has become famous because of the mathematical coincidence and because of the idea that one could memorize the digits of π up to that point, recite them and end with "nine nine nine nine nine nine and so on", which seems to suggest that π is rational. The earliest known mention of this idea occurs in Douglas Hofstadter's 1985 book Metamagical Themas, where Hofstadter states
I myself once learned 380 digits of π, when I was a crazy high-school kid. My never-attained ambition was to reach the spot, 762 digits out in the decimal expansion, where it goes "999999", so that I could recite it out loud, come to those six 9's, and then impishly say, "and so on!"
Metamemory or Socratic awareness, a type of metacognition, is both the introspective knowledge of one’s own memory capabilities and the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories. When studying, for example, students make judgements of whether they have successfully learned the assigned material and use these decisions, known as "judgments of learning", to allocate study time.
The capacity for exceptional memory can take several forms.
Eidetic memory is an ability to recall an image from memory after seeing it only once, with high precision for a brief time after exposure, without using a mnemonic device. Although the terms eidetic memory and photographic memory are popularly used interchangeably, they are also distinguished, with eidetic memory referring to the ability to view memories like photographs for a few minutes, and photographic memory referring to the ability to recall pages of text or numbers, or similar, in great detail. When the concepts are distinguished, eidetic memory is reported to occur in a small number of children and as something generally not found in adults, while true photographic memory has never been demonstrated to exist.
Andriy Tykhonovych Slyusarchuk is a Ukrainian mnemonist who has claimed to be a general aviation pilot, a psychotherapist, a Doctor of Science in medicine, a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a neurosurgeon. He has performed brain surgery throughout Ukraine in state and municipal hospitals. Slyusarchuk was employed by the V. Chornovol Lviv State Institute of Modern Technology and Management, the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture, the P.L. Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education, the A. P. Romodanov Institute of Neurosurgery and Lviv Polytechnic as a professor, and by the government of Ukraine as an adviser to Oleksandr Turchynov.
Nelson Charles Dellis is an American memory athlete, Grandmaster of Memory, mountaineer, published author, public speaker, and consultant. He is a four-time USA Memory Champion, tying the record for most wins of the national memory champion title. He is also one of the co-founders of Memory League. Nelson also runs Climb 4 Memory - a nonprofit which "aims to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer's disease research through mountain climbs around the world."
The USA Memory Championship is an annual competition that takes place every spring in New York City, and was founded by Tony Dottino, President of Dottino Consulting Group, Inc., and Marshall Tarley in the year 1997. Designed to test the limits of the human brain, the USA Memory Championship is an organized competition in which Memory Athletes (MAs) attempt at memorizing as much information as possible from Names and faces, to Cards, to Random numbers. Anyone is allowed to join so long as they're US citizens and are at least 12 years or older. The competition consists of 7 total events, 4 of which are qualifying events and the last three determine the champion.
References
- ↑ Rajan Mahadevan recites 31,811 digits of ã from memory 5 July in History [ permanent dead link ]
- ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 21 December 2005. Retrieved 17 April 2007.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ↑ DAVID R. SHANKS, Science Spectra, 1999, Number 18. Outstanding Performers: Created, Not Born? NEW RESULTS ON NATURE VS. NURTURE.