How I Engineered My Memory to Memorize 100 Digits of Pi
Engineering Memory: On learning to memorize first 100 digits of pi (2024)
After reading Joshua Foer's Moonwalking with Einstein, I used a person-action-object system to memorize the first 100 digits of pi in about an hour. The method turns memorization into engineering: each six-digit chunk becomes a vivid image of a person doing an action to an object, placed in a memory palace. Errors stay local, I can pause or go backwards, and the system scales. It's not magic—just technique and practice.
The central insight behind most memory techniques is an observation: the human brain is not bad at memorization per se; it is only bad at memorizing specific kinds of information.
- tverbeure
Moonwalking with Einstein is a fun read. I started using some tricks in real life. One of the key premises is that humans are much better at remembering sensory things than abstract ones.
A good example is remembering names: when one’s name is “John Baker”, it is so much easier to remember by silently adding “the” in front of it.
We’re also very good at remembering salacious stuff. I tried constructing my own memory palace for a grocery shopping list that included cream cheese. If you mentally make Claudia Schiffer take a bath in cream cheese, you’ll never forget that. (I read the book at least 10 years ago and still haven’t…)
- nomilk
A chapter on memorising numbers from he book The Memory Book: The Classic Guide to Improving Your Memory by Harry Lorayne and Jerry Lucas uses a similar technique. They recommend memorising this mapping:
0: 's'
1: 't'
2: 'n'
3: 'm'
4: 'r'
5: 'l'
6: 'sh'
7: 'k'
8: 'v'
9: 'p/b'
To use it, just make images/stories that correspond to the digits you need to remember.
The more absurd the story, the less likely you'll forget.
E.g. pi (3.14159265359 ) could be the images of these objects: mit, rat, lab, Noah, shell, mail, bee. Then just sew them together in a story e.g. someone drops a mit, it lands on a rat, the rat runs up to someone in a lab, it's Noah, he throws a shell, it knocks over some mail which lands on a bee.
I don't use it often, but I like to memorise any 8+ digit door code when checking into a serviced apartment or airbnb, in case I forget my phone and would otherwise be without the code.
- ThrowawayTestr
I memorized up to like 30 by singing the pi song over and over
- greeniskool
Answer in Progress on YouTube has a cool video on memory tricks and memorizing Pi [1], worth a watch.
[1] i memorized 3,141 digits of pi to prove a point (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAjkicwrD4I)
Edit: I had only skimmed through the OP when I posted this comment, turns out both the video and this article talk about the memory palace method! They diverge in the way it's applied though, with the AiP video associating digits with real life locations
- Betelbuddy
None of these techniques are new, they were just described here in $50 words and in triple the time necessary.
I can teach you right now, the first 50 digits of Pi, after the 3 and the comma. And with almost zero effort. Just memorize the text below...
Congrats you little, little genius.
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"A poem I write carefully to encode every new digit silently, reminding curious beginners how we can decipher each number in hidden text you see.
Whenever you go through beautiful green wilderness at midnight, remember when I carefully recited a simple paragraph and practiced repeating the numbers again; I remembered."
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