Today’s presentation, by Bill Ferguson, was a review of the latest WBG book club tome “Moonwalking with Einstein”. A book that uses the personal journey of its author, Joshua Foer, as he progresses from reporting on the USA Memory Championships one year, to winning it the next.
In detailing his progress, Foer examines the history and science behind the techniques used by memory athletes to perform their amazing feats, such as learning the sequence of a shuffled pack of cards in less than 2 minutes. We discover the use of vivid imagery and mind palaces in committing long sequences of items to memory, and also the situations where such techniques are not so effective too.
The book is available widely, and the consensus was that it was an interesting and informative read.