Should I learn techniques where I am at?

General Memory Chat
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Hello, I have always enjoyed thinking/memory things. Last year I randomly decided to try to break my school’s pi record on the pi day competition. I didn’t really have any experience with techniques, so I just broke it into mostly 4-digit chunks and such. I was able to beat it with 333 with ~1-2 weeks practice. However, another student narrowly beat me, in a way that I won’t get into but made me feel cheated.

As I can be a bit petty and competitive for stupid things, I decided to do 1234 this year, same method, because funny number and like I said, petty. I’m at 985 right now, usually take me about 25-30 minutes to add on ~100 digits if pre chunked. My strategy basically is add about 50-100 every so often and try to repeat whole number 1-2 * per day for retention.

As I’ve done this, I’ve come to enjoy the process and memorization in general, and as such looked into these techniques which seem pretty effective. I’m not concerned about this short term goal, but wanted to see if these would be helpful in future memorization. I feel like I’m not a very visual person, so maybe I’m misunderstanding how to use memory palace, but it just feels overcomplicated. Similar with Mnemonic.

Basically, should I try to learn these techniques? If so, is there any tips to make it not seem overly complicated? Just trying to explore the topic and get advice from experts.

Sorry for the essay, just wanted to give background. Looking forward to using the site and thanks for any tips.

TLDR - Regular memorization/chunking has worked for me for memorizing numbers this far, should I pivot?

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I don’t think you’ll learn a Major system (or equivalent) and use it for memorization before pi day this year (in 4 days time), so I would just continue with what you’re doing for now.

But the easiest way to memorize a long sequence of digits is using a memory palace (or similar structure) and I would absolutely recommend to use that if you wanted e.g. to increase it to 2026 digits for next pi day next year.

You could start with memorizing digits e.g. 1201–1299 using this system, make any adjustments you feel would be helpful, and then use that for 1300+, and perhaps to re-encode some of the earlier digits so that they stay more easily in your mind without needing to revise them so often.

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Hi you use Major with palace to memorize phi? How you di that? Create long words and relate with the palace?

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Interesting, I haven’t really seen the major system, mostly just memory palace. I think I’ll try to teach myself that, I feel like I visualize things like for example the concept of my living room vs an actual image of it but I guess I’ll just read up more on how to do it. Thanks!

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Not sure if you are talking to me or Daniel, but I didn’t really use any kind of system. I basically just broke it into chunks of four digits and sort of grouped like 20 or so of those together mentally. Got it pasted in a google doc in the chunks I think of it in and I reference it from time to time to make sure I still know it or when adding digits.

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Hi. You can see Who is talking to Who above the comment. And how you memorize the four numbers without any technique? Just repeating?

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@JagLaser I was wrong. This time seems I answered you and you can see it.

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I guess… I kinda repeat like 2 groups of 4 a few times makes sure I know then move on. I think sometimes I slightly associate like physical textures with numbers so maybe that makes it easier for me? Not sure.

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This is the foundation of most number-based memory techniques:

  1. Convert numbers to mnemonic elements (people, actions, objects… etc)

  2. Combine those elements in a consistent way to form little absurd and memorable scenes.

  3. Set each scene at a specific location along a pre-determined route (a memory palace.)

Depending on how your scenes are structured, you can encode “X” number of digits per scene. To memorize “Y” number of digits, you’ll need Y/X number of locations.

When you want to recall your number sequence (whether thats Pi, your credit card number, or whatever), just mentally navigate through your sequence of locations and decode your mnemonic scenes back into their equivilent numbers.

If you use a pre-defined number list, this whole process can be done fairly quickly. Depending on how much variety you have in your list, the scenes will be unique, even if they contain elements that are repeated elsewhere, because of the nature of the locations providing context for each scene.

This is the method I used to memorize 4325 digits of Pi, encoding 8 digits per scene, across a series of 541 connected locations.

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Txs but how do you codificate it? Major system? There are a Lot of ways but o font know how to do it. Like using two numbers 12 Titanic AND connect with the others.

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I used the Major system to create all of my mnemonic elements.

When I did my Pi project, I was using a 2-digit PAAO structure (person, action, adjective, object.) Every scene was encoded the same way, in that order. Each scene encoded 8 digits.

Here’s an example:

the first 8 decimal digits of Pi are 14-15-92-65. In my system this translates to "TaRa (14) - TaiLing (15) - BoNy (92) - JeLLo (65).

The first location in my palace was the entrance road to a football stadium. I imagined seeing a car driven by my friend Tara angrily tailgating a slower moving car that was driven by a bowl of Jello. The jello had random bones sticking out of it (Bony Jello!)

Then I mentally travel to my next location and incorporate the scene that was created by the next 8 numbers in the sequence. Then off the next location with the next 8 numbers, then the next…

There is no need for linking between the actual scenes in terms of creating a long unbroken story. Each location is its own self-contained thing. The sequence order is maintained by consistently navigating the locations. With 8 digits per scene, the total stacks up pretty quickly. With just 13 scenes you can get past 100 digits.

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Txs. great explanation. Now i want to memorize phi as hobby :sweat_smile:

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You have a 100 x4 paao system? That seems a Lot of work to make. I dont memorize numbers. It could be useful to remember words too? I dont know that. I believe it can be used as a major system. Like a peg system of words.

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It took a little while to get it to where I was happy with it. But that is just a one-time cost to pay at the beginning. I think it was worth it for the results it gave me.

I’ve since moved on to a 3-digit number system that is integrated into a true 2-card system (2704 total associations). Time will tell if the results will justify the building and learning effort!

I enjoy tinkering with these systems though and working through the puzzle of finding associations that fit, so it really doesn’t feel like a chore to me. Just like some people like to do sudoku or crossword puzzles. I approach it like a brain game and that keeps it fun.

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Minor note:

  • pi = 3.14159… is an important number in Mathematics (relating to circles etc.) with a non-repeating decimal that some people try to memorize. For many reasons, this is regarded a prestigious memory challenge.
  • phi = 1.61803… is a different important number in Mathematics (relating to geometry and algebra) also with a non-repeating decimal. People often call it “the Golden Ratio”. Not many people are interested in memorizing this, but there is a world record of 5004 digits.

Just noting that you probably meant memorizing pi (not phi) but that both pi and phi would make sense in this context.

There’s a pi day but not a phi day.

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I believed in english it was said phi. I speak spanish and im intermediate in english. Dont know much about maths or greek letters. Good to know it.

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Although this has been fairly well commented on already, I just thought I’d touch on something you mentioned about feelings. You described yourself as a bit petty and competitive. One thing you might find, is that after a few months of spending half an hour to add 100 digits each time, you could eventually come to the conclusion that you could be far more efficient with your time.

Spending half an hour each day learning a system (whether it be the popular ones preached by the Buzans and O’Briens of the world, or something entirely different) would mean that in a couple of months, you could be putting away 100 digits or so in only a couple of minutes. This is not uncommon for a lot of us here, or anyone that competes in memory comps.

So, just trying to save your future self from having a pity party, because indeed, there are better ways.

Side point, although ᴨ is a lot of fun (my own personal favorite number was 12,221 digits), once you have a system you can apply it to all manner of things, both practical and not. I have 432 contacts in my phone, but can tell you the phone of any of them. I don’t need to of course, but, if my phone gets stolen or (more likely) I lose it, I don’t have the stress of having lost all of those contacts.
Learning dates (future and past) of events is far more useful to have in your mind than having to consult a calendar.
And, honestly, I could go on for a far too long, but, and this is just my own 2c being thrown in here, you get a chance to stand on the shoulders of giants. Learn the system, follow that up with make it your own, follow that up with refinement, make it better. Heck, even share it with the community if it’s really good. :slight_smile:

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Thank you, I appreciate the insight. I definitely think I want to commit to learning a system soon, your points about the practicality make sense. One thing in particular is retention, I feel like if I don’t repeat what I know every half week or so - which at this point takes 5-10 minutes - I will start to lose it. It seems that a system could help with less active maintenance.

One question, would you say that the techniques you’ve learned for numbers/dates etc can be applied to other information to some extent or would you have to learn an entirely additional system? It seems that especially going to college next year that could be particularly helpful. My (uninformed) assumption would be that you need a new system but that training it is far faster and easier than the first due to familiarity.

Thanks for the in depth answer.

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Couple of good points in there. I’ll answer your actual question first, re versatility: Simply, it depends. Sometimes yes, sometimes, not so much. To illustrate, once you have a system for numbers, you inadvertently have multiple systems. I started (way back when!) with a major system of 1,000 nouns. This is of course well and truly refined now, but we are talking about 20 odd years ago. Anyway.

1,000 nouns based on the major system. Not only did I have an easy way to chunk any of the first 1,000 numbers into 3 digit pieces of information, I also had 1,000 pegs to hang to stuff on. I also realized I could use the first 52 of those nouns to represent a deck of cards. So, rather than learn a memory palace, I would often just use my peg system to memorize whatever I wanted. If I had to memorize a text on chemistry (I was still studying at the time) I would commit each salient point to another peg.

Now, this might seem like I am saying yes, you can have a single system, just because I did it for a time. But it comes with a caveat, which nicely goes back to your first point. The whole point of mnemonics (for me at least), was take something from short term, to long term. But you could simply do that with a decent SRS (which, if you are not using already, you should check out). A technique does facilitate this process nicely. And whether or not you need several ones depends a little bit on you personally, and your goals in life. Let’s imagine you are reasonable athlete. Good overall fitness, good hand-eye coordination. You could, in theory, go around a golf course and get a respectable score using nothing but a putter, you could. But, imagine how much better a score you could get, by learning how to control a driver, when to use a sand wedge, and really mastering that putter on the green! You are far better off putting in the time to learn and master the different clubs to be the best golfer you can be, than simply hacking away with a single club. Even if you can get away with that single club, you could do a lot better with the right club for the right situation.

Similar with techniques. Personally, (and again, this is just me) I’m a life long learner. 20 years later, I have far more in depth techniques, very bespoke to myself, and I actually really love the process of learning how to learn. How my own mind works I find fascinating. So, I have a few different systems and it it’s a matter of the right tool for the right job.

I guess in short, you’ve certainly lost nothing by at least familiarizing yourself with the techniques out there and the way that some people are going about things. If you have a bit of time pre-college to invest in your own ability to learn, it can only benefit you.

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I don't know how to study
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Interesting. Thanks again for the tips! I definitely need to try that SRS, just looked into it and it definitely seems helpful. What you said about the different methods makes sense. I think I may do a bit of research to pick one to start with and then find a book or something with details on how to do it and go from there. Any recommendations for that?