Meet the master who remembered 80 numbers in 13.5 seconds

At the beginning of February, Vishvaa Rajakumar, a 20-year-old student of the Indian university, won League of Memory World Championships, an online competition in which people fight with each other, with challenges, such as remembering the order of 80 random numbers faster than most people can tie a lace.

The well -known Eleanor Maguire neuronaukla, who died in January, studied mental athletes such as Mr. Rajakumar and found that many of them used the age-old Roman “loci method”, a trick of remembering also known as “Palace of Remembrance”.

The technique takes several forms, but generally requires visualization of a vast house and assigning memories to rooms. Mentally, walking around the house, he fires a hippocampus, a sea -shaped memory engine deep in the brain, which consumed the career of Dr. Maguire.

We asked Mr. Rajakumar about his remembering strategies. His answers, slightly edited and condensed for clarity, are below.

Q: How to prepare for the World League World Championships?

Hydration is very vital because it helps the brain. When you remember things, you usually hang up, and it helps to have a clear throat. Let’s say you are reading a book. You don’t read it loudly, but you vocalize it. If you don’t drink a lot of water, your speed will be a bit low. If you drink a lot of water, it will be more and more clear and you can read it faster.

Q: What does your memory palace look like?

Let’s say that my first location is my room in which I sleep. Kitchen is my second location. And the third place is my room. The fourth location is my porch. My bathroom is another place. Let’s say I will remember the list of words. Let’s say 10 words. What I do, I take a few words, make them history and put them in place. And I take the next two words. I make a story out of them. I place them in the second location. The Palace of Memory will facilitate you remember the sequence.

Q: How much can these rooms accommodate?

Very. Let’s say I remember 100 words. I do a story every two words. There will be a set of 50 floors. But I don’t remember which one was the first or the second. That would be a problem, right? So if I exploit the Palace of memory, I easily remember which one was the first and who took second place. Similarly, I easily remember all 50 stories.

P.: Can you describe one of the challenges in the Memory League World Championships?

They give you 80 random numbers that display on the screen. You need to remember all these numbers as quickly as possible, and then click the button and the withdrawal sheet appears. I saved all 80 digits – and I have them well. My fastest time to remember 80 random digits in this world championships was 13.5 seconds, so almost six digits per second.

Q: Do you realize how amazing it is?

Yes, yes. I cried.

Q: What next?

After graduating, like in two to three months, I will probably try to become a memory trainer and create a memory institution in India to teach other techniques of these techniques. My goal is to make him gigantic.