use Perl

• You should be safe (Score:1)

  by Limbic Region (3985) on 2004.10.07 7:37 (#35029) Homepage Journal

  Humans on average can remember no more than 7 or 8 things in a group. They do however have the ability to see smaller groups as single entities. For instance - international telephone numbers
  
  011639204351234 (ficticious # in the Philippines)
  
  011 - international
  63 - country code
  920 - equivalent of an area code
  435 - just like US
  1234 - just like US
  
  This 15 digit number just became only 5.
  
  Theoretically, this means that an average person should not have to exert a great deal of effort to learn a 49 to 64 sequence of things. The trouble is we tend to make smaller groups of 2/3/4. For instance, I know the following digits of pi from memory
  
  3.1415926535897932384626
  
  14 15 9 26535 897 932 384 626
  
  And I have on a number of occassions tried to commit more numbers to memory but these are the ones I am always sure of. This isn't to say if I worked hard at it, I couldn't memorize more - but hey, with that many digits I could already calculate the circumference of the universe with the precision of no more than a atom's width of error ;-)
  
  Humans also tend to only visually recognize up to 4 things (unless they are ordered to give cues). Place a number of dots on a piece of paper randomly and ask someone to tell you how many there are without counting them. No problem with 1, 2, 3, 4
  
  At 5 it gets shakey and goes downhill from here.
  
  In any case - I think LDDD-LDDD-LDDD should be fine.
  
  Cheers
  L~R
  
  

  Reply to This

  • Re:You should be safe (Score:1)

    by cog (4665)

    with that many digits I could already calculate the circumference of the universe with the precision of no more than a atom's width of error

    I dare you do it :-)