I am looking for information to learn just for fun like the presidents and periodic table. I want the information to be easily found. i tried looking for some information I wanted to learn but I couldn’t find it at all.
i would like more applicable information to learn. if you have any ideas on what to learn let me know.!!!
Thanks!!
Hello Parkouristx,
You can check https://artofmemory.com/challenges for some ideas.
And here are more ideas(I might repeat some):
I spend 1 hour everyday memorizing a random thing from this list, and it’s pretty fun! Mnemonics make it fun to memorize. I’m now actually excited about re-starting school…
If anybody has some other ideas, share them. Let’s brainstorm.
All the Countries in the world and their capitals
A list of famous actors and their best movies
Self Help books that list # of ways to improve your life like Amazon.ca
or something like: The 48 Laws of Power - Wikipedia
maybe watch a TED talk and memorize the key points
Thanks for the ideas. i will check them out. I want to learn them as fast a possible so i can see how dar i can push my brain.
Thanks for the list. I like a lot of the ideas you gave me. Have you memorized some of the information on the list you gave me like to completion?
If you’re talking to me, yes I memorized some of the ideas on the list already, but I started working on my memory systems 5 days ago, and I’m still new to mnemonics/systems, so I’m not quite experienced (which is why I didn’t do much).
What I did until now is:
Here’s another good idea:
The stages of development of the fetus/embryo in the womb during the 9 months of pregnancy.
Those Math pick up lines are hilarious.
“I’ll take you to your limit if you show me your end behavior.”
One that actually fits a lot of people here: “How can I know so many hundreds of digits of pi and not the 7 digits of your phone number?”
“I want to be your derivative so I can lie tangent to your curves.”
LOL.
I’ve been putting together a list of this kind of stuff for a while (although I have yet to really make any headway). Seems like it’d be great to know this stuff off hand. I divided it roughly into “culture” and “science.” Hope it’s useful:
Culture:
Oscar winners: movies, actors, actresses
People’s Choice winners: movies, actors, actresses
Grammy winners: bands, albums
Pullitzer Prize winners
Most famous books
Nobel winners: peace, medicine, physics, literature
World Leaders: current, historic
US Presidents
British Prime Ministers
World countries
World capitals
State capitals
World languages
World religions: what they believe, gods, texts; Bible books, Islam pillars, etc.
Geography: cuisine types, mountains, exports, rivers/lakes, cultural idiosyncrasies
Comic book characters
Constitution: amendments, articles
Major court cases
Greek/Radio Alphabet
Sports: college mascots, soccer teams
Types of drinks
Vocabulary
Historical Events/Eras: architecture; wars: treaties, battles, etc.
Famous cars
Google dorks
Phone numbers
Science:
Biology: amino acids, major cycles, taxonomy, ecosystems, enzymes, development stages
Anatomy: bones, muscles, nerves
General med
Constellations/Planets/Galaxies: layers of Earth
Physics: major theories, useful constants
Chemistry: periodic table elements, reaction types, types of bonds
Math: major theorems, algorithms
Psychology: major theories
Computer Science: types of data structures
Unit conversions
Poker math
Prefixes and Suffixes
Digits of Pi
(Stole a few from above. Cool ideas!)
Wow! Thanks for the list! I’ll append some of these ideas to my list.
Though, I wouldn’t really memorize math since it’s all about logic and understanding the proofs. Once you understand them, you never forget.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I was a math-engineering double major in college 
I guess what I meant was just knowing the names of the famous theorems/algorithms and generally what they were about, rather than specifics about the proofs/theory. The idea being that if you came across it somehow it would at least ring a bell and you would have some idea about what was going on. Then if you really wanted to understand it you could go home and look it up. Just like with court cases: I wouldn’t attempt to understand all the legal theory behind a case; I just wanna be familiar with the important cases out there.
“Math-engineering double major.”
Nice! I think I also want to do that.
I have mentioned this before in one of my zillion posts, but if you get a kick out of contemplation and hopes of understanding, Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy is a rundown and brief analysis of every major advancement in philosophy since the Pre-Socratics. If you memorized the chronological order of these 70 or so philosophers and the premises and conclusions of their major arguments, and of course read and understood the book, you would (I’m serious) have knowledge far above those with BA’s in Philosophy (which is one thing I do have) not because it is a true replacement for all of the material that would be absorbed through college, but because as we all know, just a few years after you study a subject (even in depth), it’s pretty much impossible to remember the details, or much of anything really. But not for a fine mnemonist such as yourself 
The experience of understanding the depth of some reality that you would have sworn was prosaic and unworthy of consideration, or more accurately, that you wouldn’t have considered at all, is as sweet as sugar 
Take for instance the color of your skin. You would describe it as a certain shade, but we all know that the sense-datum of color is derived from the light reflected off of an object. Colored lights of sufficient strength would therefore change the color of your skin in the truest and most literal sense, but without consideration of this fact, you would be inclined to consider the color of your skin that you would have original described as somehow “more real” than when it is altered by colored light, but only because your used to light of a certain hue, from the sun and the most common artificial lights.
That’s plain enough. But notice what happens when you apply the same principle to the shape of physical objects, such as the chair you are sitting on. Its shape is perceived differently when seen from different angles. We are inclined to say well “really” it is such and such a shape, but that shape you would describe is a fabrication, and there is no good reason to believe it is so. Very possibly, it is not. The persistence of the shape of your chair: not so obvious after all. Not so prosaic. Aw, but now I’m just getting sentimental. sniff
I bring it up not because I assume that you and everyone else here has no idea what metaphysics is but because it is a brief summary of a section of a more complete argument of Russell’s. An example of his thought. His is the keen intellect that critiques the thought that formed our Western World.
Then again, you said “just for fun,” and memorizing and understanding the content of this book would be a greater and more serious endeavor than what you may be looking for.
End of Chapter
That’s a good book. I took it with me when I moved to Vienna with the intent to memorize major points from it. I didn’t have time to get far in it, but it’s still waiting for me on my bookshelf. I also started his Problems of Philosophy…
There are a lot of good ideas in this thread so I’ll link to it from the wiki.
tokivena: That is a good amount of information you have memorized! If you need help with developing systems let me know. I have been doing this stuff for awhile!
AlexM: That is a very awesome list. I have few of things i want to memorize. In your opinion, to what extent should someone memorize the information too? I know it differs on what people want. But if you memorized all the bones in the body then you need to know the sate they were discovered or something. You know what I mean?
I admire your double major in math/engineering. I have take differential equations and that stuff is crazy enough!! I can’t imagine more crazy math!!!
Loci: If learning complex and mind blowing information isn’t fun, then what is!?! I will definitely look into that book sounds really interesting. I have my own ideas on philosophies, I guess you can say, I base my observations off logic because you can’t argue logic. What do i remember from my first year of college… Supply and demand, three types of rocks, physics is evil, and atoms… hhaha
All I have to say is relativity!
Parkouristx (Johnny, right?), unfortunately like I said I haven’t been able to memorize most of that stuff yet, so I’m not sure! You’re talking about adding additional bits of information, right? Like with the list of US presidents, for instance, you might also want to include their years, a few important events, etc.?
Right now what I’d try is just tack extra images onto the locus. If you really have a lot of information, I would use subjourneys. For instance, if Abraham Lincoln was on one locus, I’d have that locus be a “portal” into a separate journey. Kinda like Gavino’s massive memory palace stuff if you’ve read up on that. Or you could the image as a “mini-palace” in itself. Look at Bateman’s “Conversation B/W Newbie and Me” and search “mini-palace”:
Sorry, I can’t quite tell if you’re asking about how I’d do it or about how much detail I’d want 
If the latter’s what you meant, sorry for rambling! Like you said, it just depends on what you want. I think for most of the things in my list I wouldn’t memorize too much detail. For the purposes of these types of memorization, I personally think it’s better to know a little about a lot of things than the other way around.
Alex: I didn’t get to say this at the competition but congrats on your scores and positions at the competition!!
Yeah something like that. With the presidents it is easier with some information like the presidents. but other types of information is harder to know what would go with that type of info.
I wasn’t asking about storing but it is good to get that input. I have been thinking of my own way of storing the information. I am doing a mixture of what you mentioned.
I ask how much info you should go into detail because when you learn something, to me it isn’t worth it if you just do very basic when there is some other info that would be very helpful. SO for you, you would be a jack of all trades instead of a master of a specific thing?
Congrats to you too, Johnny! Are you gonna be at the WMC again this year?
Yeah, I guess that would make me a jack of all trades for the things on my list. But I did purposely make that list with the intention of learning a little bit about each thing. I’m going to med school this fall, so medicine’s really the thing I’m hoping to master at this point. For that I’m gonna cram in as much detail as I possibly can.
You may recognize that the arguments I posted were from the essay Appearance and Reality in The Problems of Philosophy. A short and poignant book. The perfect combination
I posted this in another guy’s intro thread just yesterday, but I think it’s a cool enough idea to repeat here.
Things you’ll need:
Procedure:
Come up with one or two key images that will remind you of each paragraph of a novel you like.
Profit
For a shortish book, maybe a Steinbeck or something, you could probably get away with this using just 1000 loci. Even without using techniques, you can look back and remember some specific details of a novel - not just major plot points. So I believe that if you could remember a single idea from every paragraph, and you reviewed your palaces enough along the way that you retained them all, you would remember most of the remaining details of the book with your ‘natural’ or ‘effortless’ memory at no extra cost. You would basically know the entire book, and it would only take a few images per page. Even for a 200 page book, that’s not a whole lot to ask in light of the potential reward.
I remember the table description, which was very interesting. I only read the beginnings of those two books, but I think about Thales and the table often. I should finish the books soon.