Remember Anything

The human mind is, at the present time at least, unexplainable. Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds science has ever known, explained many of his breakthroughs as thought problems that no one else had ever, well, thought of. Some people, many of them unable to interact normally with people around them, can perform amazing mathematical calculations in their heads faster than an average person can punch the equation into a calculator. Or they can tell you, instantly, what day of the week July 14th of 1864 fell on. Some people, said to have a “photographic” memory, can read a page of letters or numbers or diagrams and then recite or draw them perfectly. And some people, for better or worse, have perfect memories. They never forget anything, ever.

If the circumference of a circle is divided by its diameter, the result is a number with decimal numbers that apparently go on forever without any repeating pattern. The number is a physical constant, always the same for any circle of any size in any unit of measurement. Most often the number is written out to just three decimal places, as 3.141, but technically the decimal numbers continue without end. Some people can memorize these numbers out to amazing lengths. In 1989 a Japanese man, over the course of 10 hours and 50 minutes, recited the number pi out to 42,195 figures. In 1995 another man recited the figure out to 83,431 figures. Many of these individuals have odd personality traits or are unable to interact normally with people around them. Dustin Hoffman’s character in the movie Rain Man is an example of such a person. But a very rare few lead normal lives and appear to just be average people—except for these amazing feats they are capable of.

One person who is capable of these feats has attempted to explain how he does it by saying that he “hears” numbers as shapes and colors. When he looks at a mathematical problem on paper, he sees the same characters we all do, but he claims that when he hears the figures spoken, he “sees” them in his head as strange shapes and numbers. He then just says the number that he sees, and that is the answer to the problem. This is laughable until he multiplies 987,223,634,295 by 643,557,841,229 all in his head—instantly.

Scientists and experts are now realizing that some of these amazing feats can be learned. A special school in China has for several years been teaching children to perform math problems on ancient tools called abacuses. Once the children understand the concept of mathematical place, they begin doing problems mentally, using an image of an abacus they picture in their minds. The problems get progressively harder, the strings of figures longer, until these children can also perform amazing mathematical feats, instantly. Many of these abilities of memory may be attributed to a process that some individuals have stumbled on but cannot adequately explain. The Chinese school indicates that certain memory exercises can turn any person into a human calculator.

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