The Champion Who Memorized 80 Numbers in 13.5 Seconds
19 comments
·February 21, 2025vunderba
tombert
Ken's Labyrinth is a name I haven't heard in awhile. I wonder what Ken Silverman is up to these days...
I've wondered similar stuff. Even in something like Wolfenstein 3D, where most of the rooms kind of feel the same, I managed to figure out how to navigate and not get too lost (even as a kid, and even before I realized that there's a map you can use). I've always wondered if there's a way to convert that relatively fast bit of memorization I was doing into something actually useful.
I still need to look into "memory palace" stuff.
vunderba
Good question - kind of lost track of him after his work on the Build engine. It seems like with virtual environments like Second life, or even moving around in Google maps street view that there might be lots of ways to build virtual memory palaces that would lend themselves well towards memorization.
tarentel
Moonwalking with Einstein is a fun book. "Your Memory" by Higbee I read maybe 15-20 years ago and it's more on how to do this kind of stuff. I was able to memorize a deck of cards quite quickly at one point but these techniques require quite a bit of practice to keep.
Also, most of this information is freely available online at this point and there are a ton of resources for finding it probably but I remember it being a pretty useful book at the time.
vunderba
Agreed - while the techniques might be relatively simple - the ability to encode images vividly (and QUICKLY) along the loci requires a lot of practice.
Also for practical application - the Ludism website is an excellent resource.
tripplyons
Reminds me of the Rubik's cube blindfolded world record, which memorizes the whole cube in under 5 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdHPag6z2NY
My personal best had 20 seconds of memorization, for context.
shagie
One of the British TV shows that I've been introduced to over the past half decade of YouTube binging was Taskmaster (its British weird / funny)... and one of those tasks was to memorize the order of playing cards in 5 minutes.
The winner was really impressive in what was done (second place was also very impressive).
tromp
They say numbers, but apparently it's only single-digit numbers:
> They give you 80 random numbers that they display on a screen. You have to memorize all of those numbers as fast as possible, then click a button and a recall sheet appears. I wrote down all of the 80 digits — and I got them all right.
Insanely impressive one could do that in 13.5 seconds...
erikrothoff
This app does a terrific job of teaching memory palaces. Ironically it’s made by the guy in the background of the article image. https://memoryos.com/
grigri907
Far from ironic, shouldn't that be "appropriately," or at worst, "coincidentally?"
null
IncreasePosts
Is there a term for the Duolingo-ization of apps? I have no idea why I need to answer a survey question(which took 30s to load) about whether I believe the app will work to improve my memory or not.
nilamo
Especially such a long survey. My curiosity died when I was on step 5 and not even 25% done yet. Like, y'all want me to try this, or not?
collingreen
I won't even open this now knowing their onboarding is made by someone with zero thought about user experience
xiande04
Gamification and spaced repetition.
Duolingo is really just about combining gamification with spaced repetition.
leecarraher
i'm assuming you have to remember them in order, otherwise, i could do pretty good. let's see there were some 1's maybe some 2's, umm a zero
nickvec
Anyone have an archive?
When I was a kid, I probably spent hundreds of hours playing 3D FPS games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Ken's Labyrinth, etc.
I was curious as how "transferable" spatial memorization in a video game in the form of a "virtual memory palace" would be since the conventional approach is based off physically real familiar locations.
Surprisingly I found using a combination of memory palaces built off video game levels in conjunction with a PAO approach towards compressing three numerical values into a single visual image to be highly effective - though I mostly used it for parlor tricks like memorizing a randomly shuffled deck.
If you're interested in learning more about the memory competitions, memory palaces, etc. I highly recommend the book "Moonwalking with Einstein":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonwalking_with_Einstein