Monday, October 11, 2010

Mnemonics

How do you remember things?

I remember pi with a little poem I created some forty years ago:

C over D

Yes. I have a trick, sequences to recall,
Using one plain mnemonic faultless ordinal,
Breaching all of the barriers that retain pi–
Bereft, will all lax thinkers die,
By circles overborne?

(Pi to 30 digits, with the decimal point and a question mark at the end signifying there's more to come.)

So, how do you remember things?

Give us a comment, so we can improve our memories, too.


Or would you like a machine that replays movies of your memories?

The Aremac does that: Read:
The Aremac Project in Paperback
The Aremac Project as eBook



A Workshop to Remember

And remember, the Problem-Solving Leadership Workshop (PSL) is coming in May, and fills up fast. So tie a string around your finger, or visit my website

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I use many of the techniques described by Tony Buzan in his book on memory http://www.amazon.com/Use-Your-Perfect-Memory-Techniques/dp/0452266068/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1286895330&sr=1-5

Don said...

I learned about a memory tag system using simple symbols for 0 to 9. With that... I memorized the 44 US presidents in order. It all started when I started doing research for a student with special needs who had memory deficiencies. I wrote about it here: http://musingsandmiscthoughts.blogspot.com/2009/06/do-you-recall.html

Don said...

Oh, and your poem is a terrific idea. I've not read of using the numbers of letters in words to "tag" real numbers. Very clever. An original idea... or nicely borrowed?

Gerald M. Weinberg said...

Don: "...using the numbers of letters in words to "tag" real numbers. Very clever. An original idea... or nicely borrowed?"

I honestly don't remember, but it's inconceivable that it wasn't thought of before. Luckily, there is no zero in the first 30 digits of pi, because I can't think of any zero-letter words.

I guess I'm smart enough, though, to think of some way to get a zero. The Arabs did, more than a thousand years ago. :-)

Gerald M. Weinberg said...

Yes, you may use info from this site if you provide a backlink.

In the future,though, if you don't post as "Anonymous," you stand a better chance of escaping the spam filter.