In Moonwalking with Einstein, science journalist Joshua Foer recounts an exciting journey he embarked on to explore the mysteries of human memory.
Joshua begins his journey as a journalist at the 2005 USA Memory Championship, where he wants to find out: Why can some people remember multiple shuffled decks of cards or tens of thousands of digits of pi – while others forget where they put their keys?
He makes friends with some curious memory acrobats and discovers: Behind these top performances are neither tricks nor exceptional talent but learnable techniques to transform abstract data such as playing cards or numbers into information that our brains can better memorize, namely images, feelings, and stories placed in specific locations in so-called memory palaces.
Joshua gets persuaded to participate in the next memory championship and begins intensive training. He meets numerous memory artists, people with Savant syndrome, and people with severe memory loss and tells about his experiences with them.
He describes the history of memory techniques (they were already used in ancient times and disappeared only when the invention of printing made them obsolete) and explains the neurological context of their functioning (the human brain did not evolve to remember phone numbers, appointments, and to-do lists, but its environment, food places, and sources of danger).
He describes the actual techniques only superficially – if you want to know more about them, you can quickly find detailed explanations on the Internet (e.g., about the memory palace, the Major system, and the PAO system).
Joshua's journey comes to an end with his participation in the 2005 memory championship. As for how it ends, it's best to read it for yourself.
The book is highly entertaining, exciting in parts, pleasantly humorous, and a whole new reading experience due to the mix of personal adventure and science.
I recommend it to anyone interested in the capabilities of human memory – even those who don't want to become a memory professional.
🎧 Suitable as an audiobook? Yes.
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