Andriy Slyusarchuk

Most of the details in this section are based on claims made by Slyusarchuk himself, and haven't been corroborated by external sources.

At two years old he was able to read books.^[1]

At nine he graduated from Vinnytsia secondary school. His parents were medical professors: mother— a pediatrician, and father— a cardiac surgeon. They died in a car accident the same year he graduated from secondary school.

After that he was put into a Soviet orphanage. In there the teachers failed to recognize his extraordinary abilities and his attempts to show more skill than an ordinary child were subject to multiple punishments. He was taught to behave the same way other children did. Andriy was trying to get back his documents certifying his secondary school graduation to further enter a higher educational institution, but for trying that he was stamped a 'mentally disordered', 'lunatic' child and punished even more. At 11 years old he ran away from the orphanage.

Upon arriving in Moscow he entered a Gypsy environment, where he was accepted, fed, and taught to beg for money. At that time he felt that was an environment he needed. There he first learned about the phenomenon of Gypsy hypnotism and started to learn its use.

After about a year of life with the Gypsies, Andriy accidentally met an employee of Russian State Medical University. They became friends and that man started inviting Andriy to his place. Gradually Andriy told him his life story. With the help of that man Andriy was allowed to have an appointment with Yevgeniy Chazov, the Soviet Minister of Health Care at that time.

Under protectorate of Yevgeniy Chazov at the age of 12, Andriy Slyusarchuk entered Russian State Medical University, general therapy faculty. His further specialization was neurosurgery under guidance of professor Gusev, E.I. (Гусев Е.И.). His teachers were famous neuro-scientists like Karlov V.A. (Карлов В.А.), Konovalov A.N., Vein A.M. (Вейн А.М.).^[2]

He graduated from Russian State Medical University with an Honorable Diploma at 18. And immediately after that by a decision of Scientific Council Andriy was directed to the postgraduate course, without the usually required internship.

Within 1.5 years after that he received his first Ph.D. The thesis was "Ураження мозку, зумовлене герпетичними енцефалітами".

His subsequent Ph.D. thesis was «Травматические внутримозговые супратенториальные гематомы, осложнённые острой обструктивной гидроцефалией и прорывом крови в желудочковую систему.»^[3]

Accordingly to him, this difficult childhood had been more an incentive than a hindrance for his development. «Maybe, if I grew up in normal conditions, in a family, feeling financially secure, I'd be lazy and had no interest in searching for the new ways»

By the age of 28 he had received his third higher education.

Some dates (according to the press information):

• 1985 — entered 2nd Moscow Medical University (now unknown as the Russian State Medical University - named after Pirogov)
• 1992 — entered St Petersburg University, medical psychology faculty
• 1998 — received another Ph.D.
• 2003 — received yet another Ph.D.
• 2006 — has claimed to have set a world record by memorizing 5100 digits in 117 seconds (not yet officially accepted by international organizations)^[4]

He is currently a professor of L'viv State University of Modern Technologies and Management ^[5]

He was previously a professor at the chair of neuro-surgery in National Medical Academy of postgraduate education named after Shupyk (http://kmapo.edu.ua/en/academy/jubilee).^[6] By 2010 he has left his position there.^{[citation needed]}

He is known as a very successful neuro-surgeon. He has succeeded to get multiple people out of coma state.^[2]

In June, 2009, after claiming to have set a new world record for memorizing pi by being able to recite randomly selected sequences from the first 30 million places of pi, Mr. Slyusarchuk was officially congratulated by the President of Ukraine Viktor Yuschenko. A possibility of financing a dedicated research center for development of Slyusarchuk's methodology had been discussed.^[7][8]

On December 22, 2009, a press release has been issued by the press relations department of President of Ukraine, which announced that Viktor Yushchenko met with Andriy Slyusarchuk and discussed the establishing of the Institute of Brain Studies. The aim of the Institute is to ensure a complex approach to detecting and medication of the brain diseases, introduction of the contemporary methods of their prevention and treatment. The President has marked the importance of scientific studies of human brain and the significance of practical use of achieved results in education, medicine, social sphere. Taking into account the aims and directions of activity of the established Institute, conducting of such studies and measures will allow to solve, in particular, the issues of fighting the narcotic and alcohol dependence, as well as other complex social problems. President has issued a Decree, which makes provisions for establishment of Institute of Brain Studies, as a main research institution, which determines the top priority directions of brain study, conducting fundamental and applied scientific research in neurology, psychiatry, psychology and neuro-rehabilitation, development, introduction and realization of the programs of research into brain functioning, new technologies in this sphere. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is charged with ensuring the solution of all the legal and other issues related to establishing of Institute of Brain Studies, accordingly to the legislative procedure, within one month from the issue of Decree.^{[9][10][11][12]}

In his interview to "Weekly Mirror" (one of the major Ukrainian newspapers) published December 26, 2009, Andriy Slyusarchuk says it has been planned that he would become the head of the newly created Institute of Brain Studies, which would create suitable conditions for this work in Ukraine and remove the need for immigration in order to continue his studies.^[13]

Slyusarchuk claims his unique memorizing skills are based on a set of techniques including mental associations between figures, images, words, numbers (i.e. mnemonics) and an innate photographic memory of everything he concentrates on. The scientists participating at the verification of Mr. Slyusarchuk's records said that "...the mnemonic technique implied can be used by any person...".^[14]

A February 2010 article in Novaya newspaper mentions that a student of Andriy Slyusarchuk (Alexander Chervonyi) also claims that he was able to reproduce many of his master's claimed memory performances, including recitation of any randomly selected sequences from the first 5 million decimal places of pi. The article also provides information about the current experiments performed by Mr. Slyusarchuk and his assistants and claims they are related to development of new techniques of mind-control for the military.^[15]

Slyusarchuk claims to have set a number of records in memorizing large volumes of digital data, sequences of geometrical figures, as well as words and other information. In particular, he claims to have memorized 1 million digits of pi figure.^[16]

By 2008 he claimed to remember 2,000,000 decimal places of pi, as well as around 7,000 volumes of text. By 2009 the number of volumes remembered increased to 15.000.^[17]

By June 2009 he claimed to have set a new record by memorizing the first 30 million places of pi, which were printed in 20 volumes of text.^[18][19][20] Although he did not recite all 30 million digits that he claimed to have memorized, he was able to recite randomly selected sequences from within the first 30 million places of pi. However it should be noted that EVERY possible finite sequence appears in the digits of pi somewhere, so anything he (or anybody) said can be found somewhere in expansion of pi.

Since reciting 30 million digits of π at one digit a second would take almost a year (347 days) if you did it non-stop 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a following approach had been applied to verify the record: during demonstrations Mr. Slyusarchuk is being randomly asked to tell the digits of pi printed on certain pages and locations of the 20 volume printout, which is grouped into orderly arranged tables. He successfully went through this kind of test multiple times. Demonstrations had been witnessed by respectable scientists and heads of sub-departments in Universities. Book of Records of Ukraine (Книга рекордів України) lists the members of commission witnessing his demonstration.^[21] They are country-wide recognized scientists on the top positions in National Universities and Institutes.

By October 2010 Mr. Slyusarchuk claimed to remember 200 million decimal places of pi.^[22]

None of his claimed Pi records is accepted by the official Pi World Ranking List ^[23] or the Guinness Book of Records since no real independent test of his pi knowledge was possible ever.

Mr. Slyusarchuk is known for his hypnotic skills as well. In particular, he claims to be able to hypnotize people so as to not feel pain, e.g. when exposed to burns.^[24]

Another TV show presented him hypnotizing students of L'viv University of Modern Technologies (Львівський державний інститут новітніх технологій та управління ім. В. Чорновола). Those under hypnotic influence could eat onions believing those were apples.

He also demonstrated hypnotizing a salesman in a shop to take a 1 hryvna bill from him, believing this to be 500 Hryvna.^[25]

Novyi Kanal has hosted a few TV events in which Andriy Slyusarchuk demonstrated many of his extraordinary abilities. The Video recording of the events is available at http://video.novy.tv/video/3/24/9842.html .

When trying to show exceptional Chess position memory on TV (memorizing all pieces on 80 boards), he was criticized by a chess master invited to the event (Grigoriy Timoshenko), who said he was 99% sure that Slysarchuk's performance was faked.^[26] An article in The New York Times called Slysarchuk "an Illusionist".^[27]

He was also officially invited to participate in the World Memory Championships, where his feats would have been tested by independent international arbiters. He was promised 40,000 US$ if he broke the accepted memory records, but he refused to go there.

• Емігрує вчений-унікум Андрій Слюсарчук//Поліщук Всеволод, «Газета по-львівськи», №44 (48), 21.10.2008, с.

• Andriy Slyusarchuk's Fan Site on Facebook
• Ukranian genius memorizes Pi to 30-millionth decimal place
• Ющенко привітав Слюсарчука зі світовим рекордом із запам'ятовування надвеликого обсягу інформації
• Андрій Слюсарчук: За своє життя я ніколи не мав нічого свого
• Професор Слюсарчук встановив два світові рекорди
• Book of records of Ukraine
• Андрій Слюсарчук запам’ятає 15 мільйонів чисел

• Андрей Слюсарчук на lichnosti.net
• Ющенко поздравил нейрохирурга, запомнившего 30 миллионов цифр
• Андрей Слюсарчук запоминает 30 млн. цифр после числа Пи - видео онлайн
• Нейрохирург Андрей Слюсарчук угадал тридцать миллионов чисел
• «Доктор Пи» запомнил 30 млн. цифр, чтобы вернуть близкого человека
• Новый Вольф Мессинг живёт во Львове
• «Правила жизни. Повелители подсознания»
• Все статьи по теме - Львовский ученый запомнил 30 миллионов цифр

• Ukrainian ‘beats’ Rybka 4 blindfolded
• It’s All in the Programming: Computer Falls to a Beginner -- The New York Times
• Andriy Slyusarchuk at WNC
• Man memorizes Pi
• Information about him
• Slyusarchuk revisited – the annotated match against Rybka

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