How do you go about remembering decimal numbers? I’m accustomed to PAO system and major system, but I have yet to figure out a robust way of picturing for example the number 0.0047 and how to reliably distinguish this from 0.047.
What are your images or techniques?
1 Like
Would draw on my 3, 2, and 1-digit major lists:
047 = cirque (S-R-K) in major
0047 = saucer (SSR) key (K) in major.
I’d almost certainly know by the context that it is a decimal number, otherwise there would be no point in including the leading zeros.
If a decimal number doesn’t have leading zeros I could also likely tell where the decimal goes via context of what exactly this information is for. If it’s the average size of a salt grain (0.33mm) then I can just memorize it as a grain of salt dressed up as a “MiMe”. I know logically that a grain of salt isn’t 33mm or 3.3mm so .33 must be it.
If you don’t want to leave it up to context, you can choose a representative image for a decimal point that wouldn’t be confused with anything in your pre-built lists and add that in the appropriate place in your scene. You could represent it with a bowling ball or something visually round like a decimal point, or choose whatever makes sense to you to represent it. If you have a number like 1.47 meters, you could memorize it that way like Tea (1), bowling ball (.), RoCK (47). Or you could memorize it as TRuCK (147) and just figure out where the . goes via logical context.
3 Likes
Same rules apply to big numbers. E.g. If you want to remember number 25664 it might make sense to go with 25,674 thousands where you put distinct images for first and second part depending how precise you want to be.
Then if you have sth like 325 525 000 it might make sense to remember just 325 and either by context you will get that these are millions or you just add representation of million to your vocabulary.
That’s a really good question, RocDoc. I never thought about it until now, because I don’t often have to remember such small numbers. And if, like TheHumanTim suggested, I know from context how many zeros are involved.
I came up with this idea:
“0.” as in “Zero point” is a a “Z” and a “P”. Together, I could form the word “zip” or “zipper”. So in front of the numbers that follow, I could place a Zipper into the picture.
“0.0” looks like a smiley (two eyes and a nose). I would put a big yellow smiling smiley ahead of the following numbers.
“0.00” reminds me of the wheels on a big truck - two wheels in the front an two in the back.
“0.000” reminds me of a worm.
I will try this out. Whatever your images are, I would be careful that none of the codes (i.e. Zipper, smiley, truck or worm) are already part of your Major system.