Memory Club Profile

By Colleen Cable

While some people can’t even remember what they ate for lunch, freshman Mike Schneider can remember up to 600 digits of the natural log e. In order to facilitate Schneider’s hobby of memorizing, he began the Gettysburg Memory Club, which is headed to the national competition in March.

Memorization is not nearly as simple as most people believe it to be. There are many techniques and devices used in order to maximize memorization. “I knew we would be memorizing things, but I wasn’t aware of the techniques until I joined the club,” said freshman Vaughn Rennie.

One such technique is used in the game Numbers. Each competitor gets a sheet with 20 rows with 20 numbers in each row, making 400 total numbers. The object is to memorize the most numbers in order within 15 minutes. The device for this game is to “turn the digits into images,” said Schneider. For example, if the number 71 appeared on the sheet, the digits 7 and 1 both correspond to a letter, in this case 7 is K and 1 is either T or D. When Schneider plays this game, the number 71 always corresponds to the image of a cat because the sound K with T can sound like cat. This kind of technique is “the rookie system,” said Schneider. This is the technique Schneider teaches to the other club members. To accompany this method, there is a memory dictionary where each number is listed and is attached to images.

The more advanced version of this technique is to take three numbers at a time and make the first a character, the second an action, and the third an object. For example, if the numbers 71, 02, and 167 all appeared in a row, Schneider would make the 71 into his cousin, again, derived from the K sound. The second number he would turn into the verb “preaches,” and the third number would be the object, stagecoach. The string of numbers becomes an image of his cousin preaching on top of a stagecoach. “The key to memory is to take things and make them into silly and ridiculous things,” said Schneider.

The same type of technique is used for the game Cards. Again, the cards all have meanings or an individual can assign meaning to them. The King of Spades, for example, could be Obama, the seven of spades could be running, and the four of clubs could be a car. So the image associated with those three cards would be Obama running into a car. “At first [these techniques] seem really odd and strange, but they actually work,” said Rennie.

While the club officially has eleven members, only 3 students are participating in the national competition, including Schneider, Rennie, and sophomore Karl Utermohlen. Schneider, having participated in memory club in high school, has already attended nationals. Last year, 52 people competed and Schneider got 9^th place.

Schneider concedes that aspects of this hobby don’t “have much use in life,” an improved memory plus the techniques can help with school, especially when memorizing mathematical formulas, said Schneider. The game Names and Faces also helps in real life situations when meeting new people. The object of Names and Faces is to memorize 99 names and faces in 15 minutes. Now, when Schneider meets a new person, their name “just sticks” in his head. Schneider said that although it “may seem a little creepy” his goal is to memorize everyone’s’ phone numbers on his floor.