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Re:How Exercise Might “Clean” the Alzheimer's Brain by hwillis on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @12:19PM (#18230613)
The former- it's something of a party trick for him. Most people can chunk up to 3 digit numbers, so you really only need to remember 4 numbers (original two, result, and temp). When I was little people would try to beat him on a calculator, and rarely won.

His talent was mainly that he could factor super quickly, and had the times tables memorized up to some absurd level. So that just cut a lot of thinking out of the task.

Re:How Exercise Might “Clean” the Alzheimer's Brain by madeuptempacct on Tuesday October 16, 2018 @12:39PM (#18230791)
Replying to you and vorpalhex at the same time. I can see memorizing multiplication tables for 2-digit numbers * 1 digit numbers, (0-99 * 0-9).

I am unsure about chunking for random large numbers though. Mnemonic champions chunk very large numbers (I don't have sources on hand), but normal people generally don't.