Moonwalking with Einstein
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| Author | Joshua Foer |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject |
Memory Mnemonics |
| Genre | Nonfiction |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
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Publication date
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3 March 2011 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) audiobook ebook |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | |
| LC Class | BF385 .F64 2011 |
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything is a nonfiction book by Joshua Foer, first published in 2011.Moonwalking with Einstein debuted at no. 3 on the New York Times bestseller list and stayed on the list for 8 weeks.
Foer describes his book as participatory journalism in the world of competitive memorization and attempts to delineate the capacity of the human mind. He sets out to investigate the underpinnings of those with enhanced memory, soon finding himself at the 2005 U.S. Memory Championship. He covers the scientific basis of memory creation and historical attitudes towards memory, including its negative reputation in the Western educational system, a perception which Foer is largely opposed to. He explores common mnemonic tools for improving memory: the techniques of Roman rhetoricians and the tannaim ("reciters") of Judea, the Major System and the PAO System for memorizing numbers and cards, and Mind Mapping, a note-taking technique developed by Tony Buzan. These methods are all a form of the method of loci, in which data is stored in a sequence of memorable images that can be translated back into their original form. He espouses deliberate practice as the path to expertise, and declares psychological barriers as the largest obstacles to improved human performance.
The book describes the prodigious memory and 87-point IQ of Kim Peek, the inspiration for the 1988 movie Rain Man.
Foer discusses how Daniel Tammet's index finger slides around on a table as he performs mental calculations in a documentary; mental multiplication experts and mnemonists that Foer speaks with imply that Tammet's claims, involving synesthetic morphing shapes and colors standing in for complex numerical feats, are questionable. World memory champion Ben Pridmore tells Foer that "[t]here are a lot of people in the world that can do those things."
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