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Wow, this is utterly alien to me. I have always had a head for numbers but they are never shapes. The unique thing I think I have is that I visualize long stri

Wow, this is utterly alien to me. I have always had a head for numbers but they are never shapes. The unique thing I think I have is that I visualize long strings of digits as notes on a musical scale. 735 is high-low-middle. I have found I can retain strings of up to 15 or so digits in short-term memory by chunking them into triplets and memorizing them as arpeggio chords, or by their relative positions.

porkphish 5y ago
Uh... That's rad! And now I feel even dumber.
nicoty 5y ago
Do you have perfect pitch? What frequencies do the numbers have? How high is the frequency of a really large number like 1000? What about fractions and irrational numbers?
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  I don't, though I did play piano for 10 years starting at age 6. I think the frequencies are around middle C or so, though I haven't really checked. Only digits have notes associated with them. A number like 1000 is just four notes in a row. Irrational numbers again are just composed of their digits.
srvmshr 5y ago
I am good at remembering numbers & phone numbers too!. And its similar to what you mentioned. I can recite my whole phonebook if needed, even for numbers punched 15+ years ago. I see numbers as notes. So each unique number - say my college ID, my aunt's cell number or my driving license is a MIDI tune in my head. Also, visually each number is like a 'identity' - not a numeral. When I had a image processing class, running an edge detector on binary images was fun. I could guess the potrait/image just looking at the numbers (just like how you'd guess animal shapes in a connect-the-dots game)
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  Sadly I no longer know my friends phone numbers, since the advent of smart phones. But I still know the phone numbers of anyone I regularly dialed as a child, 30 years ago. I have all my important numbers memorized - SIN, multiple credit cards, driver's license, library card, health cards, all my financial account numbers, and the same for my partner. Do you do that too?
  - srvmshr 5y ago
    Yes. We might have been siblings in another life :)

porkphish 5y ago

Uh... That's rad! And now I feel even dumber.

nicoty 5y ago

Do you have perfect pitch? What frequencies do the numbers have? How high is the frequency of a really large number like 1000? What about fractions and irrational numbers?

cecilpl2 5y ago
I don't, though I did play piano for 10 years starting at age 6. I think the frequencies are around middle C or so, though I haven't really checked. Only digits have notes associated with them. A number like 1000 is just four notes in a row. Irrational numbers again are just composed of their digits.

srvmshr 5y ago

I am good at remembering numbers & phone numbers too!. And its similar to what you mentioned. I can recite my whole phonebook if needed, even for numbers punched 15+ years ago. I see numbers as notes. So each unique number - say my college ID, my aunt's cell number or my driving license is a MIDI tune in my head. Also, visually each number is like a 'identity' - not a numeral. When I had a image processing class, running an edge detector on binary images was fun. I could guess the potrait/image just looking at the numbers (just like how you'd guess animal shapes in a connect-the-dots game)

cecilpl2 5y ago
Sadly I no longer know my friends phone numbers, since the advent of smart phones. But I still know the phone numbers of anyone I regularly dialed as a child, 30 years ago. I have all my important numbers memorized - SIN, multiple credit cards, driver's license, library card, health cards, all my financial account numbers, and the same for my partner. Do you do that too?
- srvmshr 5y ago
  Yes. We might have been siblings in another life :)