In November 2005, Chinese businessman Chao Lu became a world record holder by reciting pi to 67,890 places. It took him a year to memorise the stream of digits and over 24 hours to reel them off. Like most extraordinary memorists, Chao Lu used a set of formal memory aids, or mnemonics (). To memorise a long list of numbers, for example, a mnemonist might assign consonants to each number from 0 to 9, then group the stream into four-digit chunks and convert these into words by judiciously adding vowels 鈥� a mnemonic known as the phonetic system. They might then create an image for each word and weave these into a familiar journey or arrange them in the rooms of a mental 鈥渕emory palace鈥�. This creation of a narrative or mental map in which to place memories is called the 鈥渕ethod of loci鈥�. Later, retracing the journey or walking through the rooms brings back the images, which can then be decoded into the string of digits. A similar approach can help you to remember a list of random words, even the order of a pack of cards in one viewing.
Some memory champions have talents that most of us cannot emulate, however. A century ago, Russian journalist Solomon Shereshevsky was studied extensively for his amazing ability to remember long lists of numbers and words. This apparently required very little effort: he could recite a list of 50 numbers, forwards and backwards, after just 3 minutes of study. It turned out that as well as using mnemonics, Shereshevsky was aided by his synaesthesia. For him, each number had a different personality 鈥� 1 was a proud, well-built man, 2 a high-spirited woman, and so on 鈥� while the sounds of other words would produce vivid colours and tastes, making them more memorable.
Read more: The other six secrets of memory mastery
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Memory sticks: Seven ways to remember anything
Want to remember pi to 67,890 digits? Learn Swahili? Or just ace that midterm exam? David Robson reveals the secrets of the memory masters
Memory sticks: Do mnemonics work?
Memory champions swear by them 鈥� now two psychologists have found out if mnemonics are useful in day-to-day life
Memory sticks: How should I bone up for a test?
Come exam time, which method provides the biggest pay-off from hours of hard study?
Memory sticks: Can I learn subliminally?
Learning in your sleep doesn鈥檛 work, but passive listening can help things lodge in your memory
Memory sticks: Does it matter when I study?
Helps your brain reinforce its memory traces by pacing your study and matching it to your sleep patterns
Memory sticks: Can I expand my short-term memory?
New techniques have increased memory span by around 15 per cent over a training course of five weeks
Memory sticks: When is it too late to bother?
A septuagenarian who started training his memory at the age of 58 can now recite all 60,000 words of Paradise Lost with amazing accuracy
