What would your friends think of you if you were able to say which week day was their birthday, just by hearing the date? That you are a genius! This post will teach you how to do it, while you train your working memory, and your mnemonics skills.

Note This is the first post of a series that will make you train your memory with the purpose to impress friends and family. So, even if you don’t learn anything directly useful you will learn something to be the center of attention of any reunion. You will train your brain and learn something useful for your social image. For more posts of this series, look for the category Impress!

Imagine yourself surrounded of your friends at a party or reunion. You decide that it is time to take social profit of your currently upgraded brain. But what to show and how? You may have already impressed them by having called by their names all the new people you met. Let’s take it to the next level. Let’s demonstrate that you can recall the week day for any date. And if any date is possible for this public demonstration, why not the birthdate of that pretty lady over there 😉 …

The Technique

In order to be able to recall the week day, you will have to make use of your already developed mental skills:

Mental math

Mnemonics memorization

We will use similar techniques to the ones described on those posts. So if you do not know them, you may better start by learning them. It is not mandatory, but it will definitely help you get the following technique faster.

The first step is to get the date. You may ask for the birthday of that pretty person, or her daughter’s. In case nobody wants to say their birthday date you can ask for any date they may be interested, like for example the landing at the moon, their first kiss, the assassination of Kennedy or something similar.

Let’s say, the date is 12th November of 1971

Next step is to decompose the date. You got the day, the month and the year. Additionally, you need to know the century. That’s a total of four number. You will have to process each number in your mind in a different way.

Day: 12

Month: November

Year: 71

Century: the 1900 For the example, we have the following data:

To process the day, just mentally subtract 7 to the day several times until the resulting number is lower than 7 (between 0 and 6). That will be the day_result.

In our example: 12 – 7 = 5 -> day_result = 5

To process the month, you must remember a number associated to each month. Each month has its own specific number associated, without any particular reason (just a math reason). So the best thing is to learn using mnemonics the number associated to the months. The list of associated numbers is as follows:

January = 1

February = 4

March = 4

April = 0

May = 2

June = 5

July = 0

August = 3

September = 6

October = 1

November = 4

December = 6

The associated number for a given date is called the month_result.

In our example, the month_result is 4

Then it is time to process the year. The year is a number between 00 and 99. For each number there is also an associated number. The associated number for each year is given by the following table, that you must memorize.

Year 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Associated Number 0 1 2 3 5 6 0 1 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 6 0 1 2 Year 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 Associated Number 4 5 6 0 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 5 6 0 1 3 4 5 6 Year 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 Associated Number 1 2 3 4 6 0 1 2 4 5 6 0 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 Year 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 Associated Number 5 6 0 1 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 6 0 1 2 4 5 6 0 Year 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 Associated Number 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 5 6 0 1 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4

There are several ways for you to learn this table, but are out of the scope of this post. Figure out by yourself or write me an email asking me about it. In any case you must know for each two digits year, which associated number corresponds. That is what we call the year_result.

For the year 71 corresponds year_result = 4

The process of the century requires a little more of work. You need to learn also a table by memory, but actually, there are two different tables: one for dates until the 18th century (1700s), and another for dates after that century.

Table 1

1700s – 1 1200s – 6 700s – 4 200s – 2

1600s – 2 1100s – 0 600s – 5 100s – 3

1500s – 3 1000s – 1 500s – 6 000s – 4

1400s – 4 900s – 2 400s – 0

1300s – 5 800s – 3 300s – 1

Table 2

1700s – 4 2000s – 6 2300s – 0 2600s – 2

1800s – 2 2100s – 4 2400s – 6 2700s – 0

1900s – 0 2200s – 2 2500s – 4 ….

As you can see, the 1700s century is in both tables. You should use the first table for dates before September 14th 1752 you should use the first table. For posterior dates, use the table 2. The result of this table will be called the century_result.

Again, there is a pattern in the tables that you can take profit to easier memorization. To discover it is your homework.

In our example, the century_result is 0.

Putting all together

Now, for the final step. To calculate the day, first add all the results obtained up to now. Then, subtract 7 to that total, as many times as the result is above 6. Reached that point, the resulting number will be between 0 and 6. To identify the week day, just match that number to the following table:

0. Saturday

1. Sunday

2. Monday

3. Tuesday

4. Wednesday

5. Thursday

6. Friday

The total in our example is: day_result + month_result + year_result + century_result = 5 + 4 + 4 + 0 = 13 Subtracting 7 only once: 13 – 7 = 6 Then the corresponding week day was Friday

The Workout

Now, before you are able to perform mentally with this trick, you need to train. First, you must memorize the tables above. Use any of the memorization techniques described in this web site or just use rote memory.

Then, once you have mastered the tables, you need to practice the whole technique. Do the following workout for 5 minutes every day until you feel comfortable. Remember that been constant is more important than longer training times.

Workout Visit this web page that allows you to generate random dates

Fill the form on the page that allows you to generate the dates within certain parameters. Select 10 dates, from year 100, all week days, and the format that suits you the best.

Then generate the dates.

Apply the technique for each date and write down the day. Then visit this website and check if your answer was correct.

Conclusion

Now it is your turn to impress your friends with your newly learned brain techniques. Please share your experience with us!

photo credit: pepe50 via photopin cc