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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wiederhold, Bastian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06747
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Table of Contents:
  • Anyone who has tried to memorize a one-hundred-digit number can attest that the human brain acquires abstract information slowly. However, following a three-decade increase of results at memory competitions, the best competitors manage to memorize a one-hundred-digit number in under 15 seconds. This documents explores the origins of this trend: how competitions, records and techniques have evolved. In the process several phenomena are discussed: the actual process of memorization is likely even faster, records are governed by a power law, numbers are easier than playing cards and associations are at the core of memory.