Math Is Fun Forum

MathsIsFun

Administrator

Registered: 2005-01-21

Posts: 7,713

A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

This is a great read, and will help you use your own brain:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/11/who_wants_to_be_a_cognitive_ne.php

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"The physicists defer only to mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God ..."  - Leon M. Lederman

mikau

Member

Registered: 2005-08-22

Posts: 1,504

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

Hmm.. looks like part of the link got chopped off. :-(

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A logarithm is just a misspelled algorithm.

Toast

Real Member

Registered: 2006-10-08

Posts: 1,321

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

Excellent read! So... did he become a millionaire?
It says the audience clapped perfunctoraly and without enthusiasm, and it didn't make it absolutely clear that william was his final answer.

mathsyperson

Moderator

Registered: 2005-06-22

Posts: 4,900

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

William wasn't his final answer. He used his cognitive thinking trick and got the right answer, but then he bottled out and walked with $500000 because he wasn't confident enough to risk his intuition.

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Why did the vector cross the road?
It wanted to be normal.

mikau

Member

Registered: 2005-08-22

Posts: 1,504

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

Ok I managed to get in. Wow! Very interesting article! Though it seems to me his methods only enabled to sqeeze every last drop of info from his mind. Cognitive science won't allow him to remember something he never heard, as was the case with the Beatles question. So he must have been a pretty knowledgable fellow to begin with. He just had ingenius methods of unearthing memories from long ago. At anyrate, he's obviously a brilliant man! If he had not been pressured by the risk factor, who knows how many questions he could have answered right.

My favorite line:

My neurohormones whipped from black misery to shining ebullience, saturating my brain in a boiling cauldron of epinephrine and endorphins.

Lol, I'm not sure what that means but it sounds good!

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A logarithm is just a misspelled algorithm.

Devantè

Real Member

Registered: 2006-07-14

Posts: 6,400

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

Nice read. Not many people get that far. Pretty cool how he thought about the questions.

MathsIsFun

Administrator

Registered: 2005-01-21

Posts: 7,713

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

There were some great tricks to prompting your own memories ... if only I could remember them.

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"The physicists defer only to mathematicians, and the mathematicians defer only to God ..."  - Leon M. Lederman

mikau

Member

Registered: 2005-08-22

Posts: 1,504

Re: A Cognitive Scientist on Millionaire

haha, good one, mathsisfun!

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A logarithm is just a misspelled algorithm.