I was curious simply to see how well I'd do, but I ended up winning the contest. A year later I came back to the contest, this time to try and compete, as a sort of exercise in participatory journalism. I said, well, if anyone can do it, could you teach me? A guy named Ed Cooke, who has one of the best trained memories in the world, took me under his wing and taught me everything he knew about memory techniques. Rather, they'd trained their memories using ancient techniques. And they didn't have photographic memories. But when I talked to the competitors, they told me something really interesting. I went to the event as a science journalist, to cover what I assumed would be the Super Bowl of savants. Memory Championship is a rather bizarre contest held each spring in New York City, in which people get together to see who can remember the most names of strangers, the most lines of poetry, the most random digits.
Memory Championships? How did you become involved?Ī: The U.S. If you try to picture Albert Einstein sliding backwards across a dance floor wearing penny loafers and a diamond glove, that's pretty much unforgettable. Things that are weird or colorful are the most memorable. Moonwalking with Einstein works as a mnemonic because it's such a goofy image. Q: First, can you explain the title of you book, Moonwalking with Einstein?Ī: The title refers to a memory device I used in the US Memory Championship-specifically it's a mnemonic that helped me memorize a deck of playing cards. The techniques he mastered made it easier to remember information, and Foer's story demonstrates that the tricks of the masters are accessible to anyone. Brains remember visual imagery but have a harder time with other information, like lists, and so with the help of experts, Foer learned how to transform the kinds of memories he forgot into the kind his brain remembered naturally. He met with individuals whose memories are truly unique-from one man whose memory only extends back to his most recent thought, to another who can memorize complex mathematical formulas without knowing any math.
As a science journalist covering the competition, Foer became captivated by the secrets of the competitors, like how the current world memory champion, Ben Pridmore, could memorize the exact order of 1,528 digits in an hour. Moonwalking with Einstein follows Joshua Foer's compelling journey as a participant in the U.S.
0 kommentar(er)
