Working Out Inside

Ever since my post last Tuesday (Jan. 13) on memory and the stream of decimal points of Pi, and after reading a bit in Daniel Tammet’s just published Embracing the Wide Sky, I’ve been playing with my very own neuroplasticity. That is, I’ve been experimenting with the mental calisthenics of trying to remember as much of the Pi decimal as I can (or until I decide to stop). I’ve got the first 85 decimal places down pretty solidly now, which is a big deal for a dimwit like me, but as I mentioned in my earlier post, the world record is 83,431.

The fun of the challenge is how to ‘chunk’ a group of numbers together to remember as a single configuration---a perfect venue for good old trial and error, and particularly for the free use of imagination. And then you have to figure out how to string those chunks together in order to best keep track of their sequence, which of course gets more difficult as you go along. More mental push-ups, more problem solving---and more fitness fun, as well as a nice little feeling you’ve accomplished something.

If I continue staggering down this endless memory lane, I’ll probably post an update or two of my score in the future, just for the hell of it. If you have a go at it, may all your chunks be memorable---that is, unforgettable.