Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Learning and Forgetting

Way back in the late 16th and early 17th century a Jesuit missionary in China developed a technique to improve memory. His name was Matteo Ricci. Jonathan Spence has written an interesting book about him, called: The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci.

Nowadays we have Google, so it is altogether possible that people are coming to believe that the art of remembering is becoming less important than ever before. Still and all, your ability to remember information is still of vital importance.

So I am happy to recommend an article from Wired that described a new technique for improving your memory. It was invented by one Piotr Wozniak. Most specifically, the technique has been used to learn languages, but clearly it has many other uses. I am grateful to Ari Mendelson for suggesting this article, and for suggesting that I share it with others. Ari attests that he has tried the technique and has found it to be of great value.

Written by Gary Wolf, the article is entitled: "Want to Remember Everything You'll Ever Learn? Surrender to this Algorithm. " Link here.

1 comment:

Robert Pearson said...

Absolutely fascinating and very exciting material. I have a good memory that has been aided by the linking and visualization techniques popularized by Harry Lorayne (The Memory Book and others) but this article opens up a whole new area of learning possibilities, not only for me but to teach my five-year-old son. Thank you very much!