Different Academic Subjects and The Method of Loci

[Jethro]

While I occasionally have bursts where I renew my subscription to memory league and train for sport, the vast majority of my experience with the Method of Loci has been using it to learn different academic subjects.

This started in High School, where I learning about mnemonics changed me from a failing student to someone consistently getting on the Honor Roll. Even after dropping out of college, my palaces are usually filled with my notes on different textbooks.

This focus has led to some interesting observations on which subjects work well with the method, and which subjects don’t.

First, the obvious one: The Humanities. History, Philosophy, Social Sciences, etc. Given the methods origin as a tool for orators and philosophers, it is almost purpose built for these topics. When storing books on these, I only need to make one pass during the initial encoding, and even if I never go in and “review” what I’ve stored, I’m likely to remember everything I decide to.

Next, the Natural Sciences: Biology, Chemistry, Astronomy, Physics. Given that the way schools tend to teach these topics is as a list of facts to remember, the memory palace served me well. That said, as an adult with a healthier appreciation for these subjects the memory palace is helpful as a way to store ideas and concepts that can form the foundations for true understanding.

This brings me to the one subject that has been the bane of my existence: Mathematics.

I adore math. I find it almost unparalleled in its beauty, and I think it is the closest a STEM subject can get to poetry. To truly know it, to be able to “quote” it the way I can quote History or Theology, would be a deep, deep pleasure.

And for the life of me I cannot get it to stick in my palace.

I have tried multiple times, each with renewed vigor and a revamped system, to store at least one math textbook in my palaces. Every time I have been met with failure.

The problem appears to lie in the specificity of mathematics: it requires an accuracy that even memorizing poetry doesn’t ask. Whereas a mnemonic for something in a different subject need only communicate the idea, in mathematics it must communicate it exactly, otherwise it is wrong.

Even the most basic of ideas, i.e. the first few ideas in Serge Lang’s Basic Mathematics, fade into vaguery minutes after storing them.

Has anyone else tried to learn Mathematics with the Method of Loci? I suppose it might be up to personal proclivity, so if any of you have different thoughts on academic subjects I would love to hear them.

[beau2am]

I agree that math is pretty incredible and somewhat tricky to memorize. I’ve been casually building palaces for mathematics since January or so., so I’ll share my limited experience.

I’ve been memorizing mostly fundamentals lately.

The properties of addition and multiplication and such.

And I’m memorizing speed math techniques in tandem as a way to explore how folks use the properties to find these clever techniques.

I have some other mathematical concepts memorized, but I decided to just go back to basics and play around.

A lot of my mnemonics are sound-alikes which I think work well for verbatim memorization. However I also memorize code and pseudo code so I have a number of mnemonic symbols for operations, which pairs well with the verbatim stuff to memorize both simple equations and verbatim principles and rules.

I’m doing it casually though, so I won’t pretend I have some great wealth of math knowledge. I don’t.

[Jethro]

Thanks for the reply!

Interesting. How often do you review your palaces? Whenever I’ve tried to store mathematics or, indeed, computer science (I did a semester of it in college!), it’s needed way more reviewing to keep accurate than, say, psychology, so I’m curious what your experience has been like.

[Noan]

It might help if you give some examples of what you tried so far and the thinking behind it. Maybe someone here can help you bounce some ideas around and get some images that get into long term memory.

I’d love to offer something, but I haven’t started encoding math yet.

[beau2am]

The best way I’ve found to review my own palaces is by doing math problems that use the formulas or rules and then solving them while reviewing the palace.

Connecting the practical application directly to what I’ve memorized.
I also do this for programming and martial arts.

I slow down and do both at the same time, the practical application and the palace review.
Eventually I don’t have to slow down, they just happen together.

[Jethro]

Sure thing! Let’s take N9 from page 16 of Serge Lang’s Basic Mathematics:

N9. - (ab) = a(- b)

The image I went for is a wolf and a fish stuck in a cage being sad, and next to them a happy wolf outside a cage looking at a still sad fish.

This worked reasonably well, for a time. The problem was that, with the wolf (the image for a) and the fish (the image for b) appearing so often in that same palace (since the chapters naturally deal in similar formulae and equations), that it all started to blend together into a puddle of wolves and fish.

My worry is also, later down the line when I get to say, calculus, how scalable this one-to-one encoding would be

[Jethro]

Oooh, this is really good. A concern of mine when studying was how much time I had to devote to practice problems on top of reviewing my palace, so I need to start doing this.

Thanks!

[Noan]

@Jethro

The problem was that, with the wolf (the image for a) and the fish (the image for b) appearing so often in that same palace (since the chapters naturally deal in similar formulae and equations), that it all started to blend together into a puddle of wolves and fish.

Yeah I can see how having all "a"s as wolves, all "b"s as fish can get really repetitive. Maybe you could come up with a category of animals to use as variables instead of specific ones to use instead? Something like farmyard animals, Sahara desert animals, or animals that live on a specific reserve.
In this case each a is a wolf, each b is a fish, but in another place each a could be a deer, b a bunny, c a goose.
N is a pretty special variable, it should probably have it’s own specific representation.

Are the animals being sad or happy memorable? If not, maybe you could equip them with things that make it memorable. Comedy or tragedy masks for example.

Gotta admit, it took me several minutes to figure out -(ab) = a(-b). It’s been a long, long time since I’ve done even rudimentary algebra.

[beau2am]

The same images recurring too often also happened to me for programming as well as math.

The imagery would start to bleed into each other and I’d forget which particular variation I was attempting to recall.

With this in mind my strategy is to find themes, and to pull from a set of images with that theme.

For instance, I use both ‘crab’ and ‘Krusty the Clown’ for the number 74. That’s an example of a number that has a ‘set’ of images.

For the plus sign, I can use the cross (naturally) but I also sometimes turn it into a stake (for stabbing vampires and such).
This keeps the imagery still resembling a cross and matching the cross-theme.

For parentheses (especially in programming) I use a cauldron.

(see how much stuff fits in this cauldron?)

But I’ve also used a hula hoop
(ab)
^look how they’re stuck together in that hoop

I also have used a lasso. The theme is “things grouped together in there” I suppose.

For division I have used a samurai “dividing” with his blade /
But a pole launched through the dividend by the divisor works too. As long as the dividend ends up ‘“divided”.

For the term equation, I use a horse (equine).
But equality uses a koala.

If equation comes up a lot, terminology wise, I keep with the horse theme somehow.

There’s a couple examples of how I think determine which mnemonics to use for commonly repeated terminology and symbols. I guess you could say I don’t pick a single image so much as I play off of motifs.

[Noan]

@beau2am

For instance, I use both ‘crab’ and ‘Krusty the Clown’ for the number 74. That’s an example of a number that has a ‘set’ of images.

Do they ever merge into the Krusty Krab?

[beau2am]

No but that’s an excellent example of on-theme and is now in the set!

[Anowood]

What exactly is the target of memorization here? Formulas? Descriptions?

Mathematics is more about discovery than memorization. Even the seemingly simplest of formulas have nuances that you will only start seeing once you are fairly advanced. The same thing you thought was obvious will look completely different after 6 months of study. There will be tons of tough nuts to crack but if you don’t give up the “eureka moment” is sure to come and mathematics will become truly addicting for just that feeling alone.

Getting better at mathematics will naturally make it easier to memorize. And solving tons of problems is the way to do so. Reading the same book on mathematics after 1 year of intensive study will make it appear like a different book when it comes to levels of comprehension. When we are talking about how to use the memory palace to aid mastery in skill we are talking about a fairly advanced topic. Meta strategies to learning math could be memorized. In that case reading a good book on the topic of how to approach learning mathematics might be useful. I can think of several soft skills that could aid in learning mathematics that could be memorized but it’s hard for me to see how the memory palace could be used for a direct approach of learning mathematics.

[Jethro]

There’s a couple examples of how I think determine which mnemonics to use for commonly repeated terminology and symbols. I guess you could say I don’t pick a single image so much as I play off of motifs.

Gotchaaa. I guess my instinct to keep everything standardized might have been hurting more than helping here. I’ll be trying this out!

[Jethro]

Are the animals being sad or happy memorable? If not, maybe you could equip them with things that make it memorable. Comedy or tragedy masks for example.

I guess I’ll need to make a category for positive/negative as well!

Gotta admit, it took me several minutes to figure out -(ab) = a(-b). It’s been a long, long time since I’ve done even rudimentary algebra.

Same here. It might be part of why I’m having such difficulty using the palace for this: I’ve never stopped using mnemonics for remembering words, as they come up often in daily and professional life. But algebra? Not as common.

[Jethro]

@Anowood

it’s hard for me to see how the memory palace could be used for a direct approach of learning mathematics.

A fair point!

My goal with memorizing other academic texts has been mostly the same: so that I can “read” the book without having the book with me. For example, my workplace has often found my memory of Robert Cialdini’s psychology helpful, and I hang out with quite a number of spiritual-types who value my ability to provide historical/psychological context to their practices.

Also, it makes the wait in long grocery lines way more bearable

My goal with math is more personal (I doubt anyone in my circles would find math knowledge useful, per se) but fundamentally the same: I want the ability to see and work with the knowledge, without actually having the book with me.

[beau2am]

@Jethro

so that I can “read” the book without having the book with me

This exactly.

It’s exactly the reason I memorized all the programming documentation. It’s the reason I memorize lines from a script. It’s the reason I memorize principles and rules in math.

The reason is so I don’t need the text in my hand.

Well said.

[Daniel_360 (Daniel Timms)]

As a graduate in Mathematics (who had to memorize lots of information like proofs for university exams) let me tell you that the top Mathematicians are absolutely not using memory palaces to study the material. Mathematics (and Physics and—to a lesser extent—other academic subjects) are about developing powerful mental models for the domain.

The example of –(ab) = a(–b) above offers a perfect illustration. No-one should be trying to memorize this because it should be absolutely obvious if you understand what multiplication means. If you try to memorize the sequence of symbols you are missing the forest for the trees in the most egregious way I can imagine. –(ab) means you multiply b by a and then by –1. a(–b) means you multiply b by –a and then by a. So it’s the same.

Likewise, if you use a system that encodes a, b, c etc. as different objects, you’re hiding the essence of algebra from yourself. a² + b² = c² is the same as b² + c² = a² (just for different labelling of a, b and c) and the same as a² = A² + z². Each one describes the relationship between the lengths of the shorter sides of a right-angled triangle with the length of its longest side. Memorize that (with spaced repetition tools if necessary) and you save yourself so much counterproductive effort.

Memory palaces are amazing for fast recording of structured sequential data, and I love using them (and teach them to my students e.g. last Thursday). But not for learning Mathematics (or languages, or Physics, …)

[beau2am]

Daniel, do you discourage memorizing the ABCs?

Most certainly you discourage memorizing our times tables.

[Vini_Villela (Vinícius Villela Cuan)]

I had a similar problem, although with another subject. I think that the best thing you can do is have more than one thing to represent a symbol, and, if possible, something that its own name can make you remember the name of what is being memorized.

For example, I was learning Ancient Greek declination. It is a bunch of two or three letters, with no logic behind them whatsoever (there is a pattern through the language, of course, and the same or very similar endings appears again and again, but at the start, it’s just a bunch of letter put together). For letters that are repeating themselves to much, I would have more than one symbol. For example, for omega (ω) I would use Megaman or someone eating omega-3 pills, like in the Masculine plural genitive definite article των. For ε I use the same person and thing I use with a regular e: Ennio Morricone and, when I need to combine it with other letter, a sewer, because it means ‘‘esgoto’’ in Portuguese, my native language. That is, both begin with E. To remember the present tense second person Sg. of ω verbs, I see Isaías, a geography teacher that I had, jumping headfirst in a filthy sewer, with results in -εις. Isaías, in this particular case, represents not only one letter, but two: -Is. In math, I don’t know how much that would be useful, but making images for syllables, as far as language learning goes, is paramount. I do them as the need arises.

Anyway, the main take is: make more than one image for things that you are using a lot, perhaps from different categories (a person, an animal, some passive thing like the sewer which will be interacted with) and use the letters of the names of things to make them easier to later decode. In such way you can have a bigger variety of images that, by their own name, make very clear what is it that they are representing.

[Vini_Villela (Vinícius Villela Cuan)]

I am sorry, but I can’t see how they wouldn’t be useful for languages, even though I am felling quite compelled with your argument against using the techniques with mathematics.

But getting back to languages: I would find it… complicated to see someone using palaces for vocabulary, for such a amount would be necessary and the way to locate them at demand would be, at least in the beginning, very cumbersome. But for grammar, specially in declined languages, like the example I gave with Ancient Greek, or even in German, both languages that I using them for, they are a God-send.