Suggestions for developing imagrey for the various angles on a clock?

General Memory Chat
1

Hey everyone,

One thing that I find I have to memorize quite often for my purposes is the various angles of lines – the way I do it is use a clock to assign a numerical value to each line. So if a line is said to be at “1:00” it would be the resulting line created from the center of a clock to its 1:00 position.

Basically, I need to come up with some imagery to represent 1:00 through 12:00, including halves (1:30, 2:30, etc.)

I was wondering if anyone might be able to post some suggestions for ways to go about this.

2

Ignore the angles. Digital clocks don’t have angles anyway. Not the same angles, at least…

The first answer that comes to my mind is that the “shadow system” which I use for memorizing cards and various other things can not only capture nearly all of the 720 possible clock states in natural categories, but nearly all of the 1440 possible times of day which are represented by clocks (a.m. and p.m.). It actually would only include 1436 of them which is a lot more information than you need, but why hit backspace now? We’ve already moved on.

The shadow images have come in handy for so many more things than I would have predicted: chess, historic dates, letter combinations, license plates, URL’s, and Dewey Decimal by extension.

And now clocks!

You can get by with <1% of the imagery for your purposes, though. You’re asking for 24 pieces of imagery, or 48 if you care to distinguish between a.m. and p.m.

As usual, I’ll put to you that using the major system is your best bet.

1)Learn the major system.
2a)Extend it so that are 12 categories instead of only 10. The way that I tend to do this is to use the consonants “H” and “Y.” The reason that I do not include “Th” or “W” in these situations is that they are so audibly similar to “F” and “R” that I choose to represent them with the numbers ‘8’ and ‘4,’ respectively
2b)Alternatively, you could simply include 3-digit images using the Major System, the Ben System, or even the Dominic System if that’s the way you want to live your life. Just make images for:

10
13
20
23
30
33
…
110
113
120
123

  1. If you want to be able to differentiate between a.m. and p.m. (note that you will only need to do this if the clock-states must be recalled without context) then the easiest way to do this may be with shadow images.

A shadow image is an image that is related to the original image in any way that makes sense to you as far as being memorable.

996 - PBJ
s996 - Hamburger

For me,
123 - Tin Man
s123 - C3PO

Do you think this will work for you?

3

Hi,

Thanks so much for the detailed reply! It was very informative.

I think using the major system {or some other system for converting numbers to images} makes a lot of sense, after all what I’m trying to remember is basically a set of numbers. I’ll have to start reading up on the major system!

The idea of a shadow image sounds very intriguing for differentiating between AM and PM - which I don’t need to do at the moment, but hey you never know. It’s funny – I’ve actually been using the shadow image system in my memory challenges without realizing I was doing it up until now. It’s been a very effective way to relate two things together, I’ve found. I’m glad you brought it up as it’s clarified the concept for me and I think now I’ll be able to put it to use all the better.

Thanks again.

  • Mike
4

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood, but are you looking to learn the angle created between the two clock hands?

Each five minutes is thirty degrees so it should be pretty easy to calculate on the fly.

5

I’m using a clock to help me visualize angles, rather than to learn the angles between the two hands. If the big hand is at 1:00, and you draw a line from the center of the clock through the hand to where the actual number 1 is printed on the clock, you get a specific angle.

I guess it’s kind of confusing to explain without imagery, but basically all I need to remember is the time itself as a number - “1:00, 2:00” and so on. So it makes sense to use a number system now that I think about it.

6

If I understand you correctly one of the tricks I use may be helpful. From the idea of a clock face I progressed to using an image of an intersection.
Standing in the middle of a well known intersection, the road straight ahead is 12 o’clock. The houses on the right of that road are 1 o’clock. The road to the right is 3 o’clock and the houses (or fence) to the left and right of that road are respectively 2 and 4 o’clock and so on. Having an image of the road or house gives you the number directly. The second house along the road could even be half past the hour.
You can do the same thing by standing in the crossing of a cathedral with the choir and apse ahead, the two transepts and the nave behind. There are three walls in the four directions.

I thought about using palaces like this to place images of a three lettered card system that I have with 13 in the centre of the clockface/intersection/crossing.