Mind-jogging for the 21st century

By Nina E. Tveter
Photo: Jens Søraa

Professor Allan Krill has developed a method that helps people to remember long numbers without overtaxing themselves. The secret is the Pseudonumer (right). This enables us to remember hundreds of random numbers.

There's a menu in the muff !
­ Or, the muff is on the moon!!
­ How about: the muff is full of money?

Professor Allan Krill considers the eager suggestions from the seventh-form children. He is visiting the class to test one of his newly developed number-memory techniques. It is based on using words in odd phases to remember numbers.

Krill chooses the last suggestion: a muff full of money. These "pseudonumes" are the 25th to 28th digits in pi. The next two digits become a cup that the money is put into. By the end of the lesson, the children have linked 25 visual pseudonumes and can repeat the 51-digit number from memory.

Guinea pigs at NTNU

Not only school children have tried the professor's strange memory techniques. His geology students at NTNU are also guinea pigs.

Elena, a seventh former, is engrossed in mentally "keying in" pi to 50 decimal places.

­ The fastest students can memorize 40 random digits in five minutes, while the average student uses twenty minutes. They can all do it, even those who usually dislike numbers and memorizing things.

Another of the new techniques was developed for remembering shorter number combinations, such as pin codes, bank account numbers, telephone numbers. Here the object is to make a pseudonume phrase, instead of linking pseudonumes.

­ My cellular telephone number is brave yankee wayfarer, says the emigrated American with a smile. Or how about the number for ordering a taxi in Trondheim? That's: "come always, all I ask'em".

Two memorization devices

Krill's work with number memory began over twenty years ago, when he became discouraged trying to remember the ages of various rocks and geological periods. He learned the world's most powerful memory technique, in which numbers were converted to words. Few people actually use this technique, however, because they must first memorize a set of 100 words, and then use the same words over and over again.

Krill was sure that if all words could be used, this technique would become more popular. So three years ago he began compiling a reference book of all common English words. This book is now the Ponderous PseudonumerTM, with 65 000 entries. It is used to look up numbers and make short phrases, as Krill has done with brave yankee wayfarer. He also developed the Pocket Pseudonumer (both in English and Norwegian) a handy page that folds to credit-card size. It is used to quickly key two-digit numbers into the memory, as the children did with muff-money-cup.

These "Pseudonumers" are memorization devices that are only used for finding the best words to substitute for the numbers. As long as the words are remembered, they can be mentally "pseudospelled" at any time to give the original numbers.

Enjoyable mental exercises

Krill has great confidence in these techniques. He predicts that finding clever pseudonumes will become a popular word game like Scrabble or crosswords. Everyone will know how to pseudospell words as numbers. Pseudonumes will appear in advertisements and telephone directories to help people remember numbers.

Krill also thinks a new health trend is on the way:

­ We are now inundated with electronic memory devices and feel there is little need to remember numbers. This is similar to our attitude towards cars and machines a few decades ago. But now we are looking for fun ways to use our bodies and muscles, to keep in better shape. Soon we will also be seeking fun ways to use our minds and imaginations and keep our memories in better shape. Remembering numbers is something we will do, not because we need to, but because of the great personal satisfaction it gives to store several hundred handy numbers in our heads.

Krill has applied for registration of the trade marks Pseudonumerology and Pseudonumer in the USA and the UK.

Contact at NTNU: Allan Krill
Tel: +47 73 59 48 03
E-mail: Allan.Krill@geo.ntnu.no

Teach yourself Pseudonumerology

Each digit from 0 to 9 represents a consonant sound group. Vowels and silent letters are ignored.

The digit 0 = the sounds z, s, c. To remember this, think of zero starting with z. The digit 1 = t, d. The letter t has one vertical line, and d is in the same phonetic group. The digit 2 = n, ng. Memory aid: the letter n has two vertical lines. The digit 3 = m: m has three vertical lines. The digit 4 = r: r is an important letter in the word four.

The digit 5 = 1(L). Memory aid: the inside of your right hand (with five fingers), with the thumb sticking out, looks like the letter L. The digit 6 = J, soft g, sh, ch. Handwritten J resembles a backward 6. The digit 7 = k, c, hard g, q: two 7's are hidden in the letter k. The digit 8 = f, v: handwritten f resembles an 8. The digit 9 = p, b: they resemble the digit 9.

Once you have learned the code, you can try it, with the telephone number for Gemini, NTNU: 73 59 53 21. Using the Pocket Pseudonumer, we find pseudonumes for these numbers. 73 can be wigwam, 59 wallaby, 53 limo, and 21 net. These can be linked in any silly, memorable way: The Gemini-office is a wigwam, inside the wigwam is a wallaby hopping around, the wallaby rides a black limo, the limo is caught in a net.

To make a pseudonume phrase for the number 73595321, you must use the Ponderous Pseudonumer. A good phrase would be: "come help illuminate". Gemini's goal is to help illuminate NTNU research, so this could be a phrase that many people might like to use.

If you should forget part of the code, which might happen when you are first getting started, you can check it by writing:

Pseudonumerology ­ I give up!

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