Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

the memory was also the very instrument that she used to design and build new mental structures from the materials she had at hand.2 In Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages, the memory was where monks did some of their most complex concentrating. To do that, monks learned how the memory worked—rather than treat it like a black box, as we often

... See more

how could you build a medium to better support a person’s memory of what they read? What interactions could easily and enjoyably help people consolidate memories? And, more broadly: is it possible to 2x what people remember? 10x? And would that make any long-term difference to their effectiveness?

Given how central memory is to our thinking, it's natural to ask whether computers can be used as tools to help improve our memory. This question turns out to be highly generative of good ideas, and pursuing it has led to many of the most important vision documents in the history of computing. One early example was Vannevar Bush's 1945 proposal** V... See more