If you remember it wrong, its over. (you keep the money you got and that’s it)

No notes, digital physical or otherwise. You’re only allowed to use your brain.

Starts with 5 words, totally random, then next day it 6 words (the original words from the previous day is kept the same, but adding one new word). Day one prize is $1000, day 2 prize is $2000… (so you have $3000 if you got the first 2 days correct) and so on…

(All currency in USD at current exchange rate)

How much do you think you can get?

I think I max out at like 12 words, then I’d just mess it up.

  • solrize@lemmy.ml
    1·
    2 days ago

    The password file I use has 22665 words (it’s actually /usr/share/dict/words filtered to 8 bytes or less). I use random 6 word phrases from it, so 86.8 bits of entropy. One word is about like 4.3 digits in terms of randomness, but it’s easier to remember. For 12 random letters (56.4 bits) simplest approach is make up a sentence starting with those letters and try to remember it. Here:

    >>> import string, random
>>> ''.join(random.choice(string.ascii_lowercase) for i in range(12))
'acobjomepaxr'

    So the 12 random letters are acobjomepaxr. A crusty old bastard jumped on my exquisitely pampered, ancient xenophobic rodent. That took a minute to concoct but it helped the words sink in. If you do that, then write down the sentence a few times like before, you will probably remember it. Think of the 100s of lines of stupid Monty Python dialogue that every nerd of a certain age can recite without even having tried to remember it on purpose. Also see: https://xkcd.com/936 .

    When I create a new passphrase (6 words using /dev/urandom), I generally write it down on a slip of paper and carry it in my pocket. That is potentially subject to capture but it’s pretty safe from network attacks. Then when I need to type it in, I try to remember it but refer to the paper if I have to. After a few times, I don’t need the paper any more, so I can drop it into a shredder. I haven’t done this recently, but it’s not a big deal.

    • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
      1·
      2 days ago

      Think of the 100s of lines of stupid Monty Python dialogue that every nerd of a certain age can recite without even having tried to remember it on purpose.

      That works because they’re real sentences, and sentences have structure and make sense. Reciting a 50 word paragraph from a book/movie word for word is infinitely easier than remembering 50 random words in the correct order.

      So the 12 random letters are acobjomepaxr. A crusty old bastard jumped on my exquisitely pampered, ancient xenophobic rodent. That took a minute to concoct but it helped the words sink in.

      Again though - you made a real sentence out of a random string of letters. What OP is asking isn’t a real sentence, nor a string of letters that you can use to make your own real sentence.

      • solrize@lemmy.ml
        1·
        2 days ago

        Nothing stops you from making up a sentence the way I did. You’re shown a string of 12 random letters and you will get $1000 if you can repeat them from memory tomorrow. You can’t make up a weird memorable sentence in a few minutes with $1000 on offer? Idk about you, but most of us could use the extra $1000 and would jump at the chance.

        The OP was asking about a passphrase that gets 1 word longer each day. Have you tested yourself at all? You might look up “memory palace” for techniques of doing that sort of thing. 5000 words is impressive, 50 is no big deal at all. Change your Lemmy password to a 5 word random phrase (write it down) and log in a few times a day with it. You will remember it without referring to the paper pretty quickly. Do that 10 times with different phrases and there is your 50.

        I don’t know what else to tell you since it’s obviously only answerable empirically, and even given a demonstration you would probably just claim that the person was an unusual freak. I don’t claim that literally everyone could do it (some people are just hopelessly forgetful). But IMHO it’s very doable in general.

        • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Nothing stops you from making up a sentence the way I did. You’re shown a string of 12 random letters and you will get $1000 if you can repeat them from memory tomorrow. You can’t make up a weird memorable sentence in a few minutes with $1000 on offer? Idk about you, but most of us could use the extra $1000 and would jump at the chance.

          I just addressed that…

          Again though - you made a real sentence out of a random string of letters. What OP is asking isn’t a real sentence, nor a string of letters that you can use to make your own real sentence.

          That’s not what OP is asking. OP is saying that every day you’ll get a random word, not a letter. It’s not the next word in a sentence/paragraph - just a random word. You cannot use the same trick of making a sentence using the letters you have to remember as the first letter of each word, because you are being given the words you have to remember.

          To believe that most people could remember 50 random words, in the correct order, is absurd. There are plenty of sources saying that the average person can remember less than 10, even when talking about random numbers instead of words. It has been studied for decades, if not over a hundred years by now, and the closest you’ll get to a consensus of the number of words or even numbers people can just remember in their short term memory is … drumroll…7!

          https://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/capsules/experience_jaune03.html

          https://humanbenchmark.com/tests/number-memory

          https://glossary.psywellpath.com/exploring-memory-span-how-much-can-we-remember#real-life-examples

          https://www.englishclub.com/efl/podcasts/interesting-facts/working-memory/

          https://yoursagetip.com/questions/how-many-words-can-the-human-brain-memorize/

          https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/brain-memory-magic-number/story?id=9189664

          Countless psychological experiments have shown that, on average, the longest sequence a normal person can recall on the fly contains about seven items. This limit, which psychologists dubbed the “magical number seven” when they discovered it in the 1950s, is the typical capacity of what’s called the brain’s working memory.

          As a sentence or a string of numbers gets longer, it becomes exponentially harder for the excited cluster to suppress the others from firing, resulting in pathways that are weak or barely there. Recalling seven items requires about 15 times the suppression needed to recall three. Ten items requires inhibitory powers that are 50 times stronger, and 20 or more items would require suppression hundreds of times stronger still. That, Rabinovich explained, is normally not biologically feasible.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_span

          I doubt there is even a single person here on Lemmy that would be able to get even remotely close to 100 words. Maybe 1 or 2 could hit 50…but highly unlikely.

          • solrize@lemmy.ml
            1·
            2 days ago

            This has nothing to do with short term memory. You only get one new word per day. You get to add it to the earlier words and spend hours practicing the new phrase, writing it out, etc. Then you go in the next day, recite it, get a new word to add on. [Edit: re-reading the original post, maybe you don’t get to write it down, but that’s ok].

            Do you know your own phone number, license plate, birthdate, address, SSN, credit card number, and so on? Some subset of the same basic info about your friends and family? It’s all pretty random and comes to about the same thing.

            I do think people rely on computers and smart phones more instead of remembering stuff. I’m old, went to school before everyone had mobile phones and computers, you had a land phone at home and it didn’t store any numbers-you had to manually dial them. So you used the phone a lot more for stuff that you’d text or email today, and you’d manually dial the number. After you dial someone’s number a few times you’d remember it. So you probably knew a few dozen phone numbers by memory. At best similar to a comparable number of words.

            Also, maybe more people are having trouble. Microplastics? Covid? Who knows. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-09-sharp-memory-problems-adults.html

            • FreedomAdvocateEnglish
              1·
              2 days ago

              It has everything to do with short term memory. These words wouldn’t be getting committed to long term memory lol

              I also grew up before mobile phones and the internet.

              • solrize@lemmy.ml
                1·
                2 days ago

                Of course they are going to long term memory. You have to repeat them the next day, remember?

                  • solrize@lemmy.ml
                    11·
                    1 day ago

                    I think you’re using an unusual concept of the term. I give you 5 words with an offer of $1K if you can repeat them to me tomorrow, so you put some effort into memorizing them for that. You’re telling me that’s short term memory? I don’t think so.

                    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-term_memory

                    “For example, short-term memory holds a phone number that has just been recited. The duration of short-term memory (absent rehearsal or active maintenance) is estimated to be on the order of seconds.”