The book of How To Remember Equations And Formulae

General Memory Chat
1

I’m just curious if any of you came across the book How To Remember Equations And Formulae by Phil Chambers and James Smith? Apparently its for high school students but still I’d be interested if the book contains any new (or interesting) ideas?

Thanks

2

I haven’t read it yet, but there is a sample chapter on the website, if you haven’t seen it yet.

3

I’ve just downloaded the book and had a quick look at it (not a complete read through). Thoughts:

  • It’s standard stuff, using normal mnemonics and the method of loci, so it won’t contain any big surprises if you are already familiar with memory techniques. That’s not a bad thing - it’s tried and tested techniques, rather than anything weird and unproven.
  • It’s well written and explained.
  • There are handy suggestions, such as ideas for mnemonics for the letters of the greek alphabet, and for unusual mathematical symbols. I’ll have a go at learning them - they could come in useful. Similarly, there are some suggestions for specific commonly used equations.
  • It’s quite short - again not necessarily a bad thing, but don’t expect masses of material for your money.
    So overall, might be useful to someone who has a lot of complex equations to memorise.

Personally, I’m a bit skeptical about the value of using mnemonics for mathematics - the best way to learn mathematics is to really understand it inside out so the equations become almost obvious. The trouble with mnemonics is you might remember the equation, but still have very little understanding of how to use it, how the equation is derived, etc, and there’s a danger of spending too much time on mnemonics and not enough time learning to apply the equations for problem solving. Still, I think mnemonics do have their place in mathematics and this book has some good ideas for using them.

1 Like
4

Thanks Tomasyi for summing it up. Although I’d be interested to look into it, I’m not sure if loci is the right method for me. I’m giving lectures in a university, sometimes 5x45 min and I cannot derive all the related equations without checking my notes time to time.
If I’m not mistaken Josh suggested in the past a method to write up the equations in one line and use some sort of Major system to transfer the equations into words and sentences.

5

I’ve brainstormed some ideas, but I haven’t memorized math formulas. I think we were discussing Shereshevsky’s method from The Mind of a Mnemonist at some point, but I couldn’t find the post. The book is next to me and open to that page, so here is an excerpt of the first part of the formula and his mnemonic:

N\cdot\sqrt{{d^{2}\times\frac{{85}}{vx}}}\cdot

Neiman (N) came out and jabbed at the ground with his cane (.). He looked up at a tall tree, which resembled the square root sign (√), and thought to himself: "No wonder the tree has withered and begun to expose its roots. After all, it is here that I built these two houses" (d2). Once again he poked with his cane (.). Then he said: "The houses are old, I'll have to get rid of them (x). The sale will bring far more money." He had originally invested 85,000 in them (85). Then I see the roof of the house detached (—) , while down below on the street I see a man playing the Termenvox (vx). He's standing near a mailbox, and on the corner there is a large stone (.), which had been put there to keep carts from crushing up against the houses…

There are more discussions here:

A memory system to remember equations?
6

I agree loci is probably not the way to go for lectures. Even though I’m well practiced with loci I don’t tend to use them for presentations. You really don’t want to be standing in front of a lecture theatre with a blank expression as you go through your set of loci. And there’s nothing at all wrong with having a few notes when lecturing, as long as you’re not reading from them too much.

I think remembering things for your lecture probably has more in common with an actor learning his lines; they don’t tend to use the method of loci. This is the routine I tend to use for presentations/lectures:

  • Write out a script of what you want to say (dictating it out loud with speech recognition software is good for this, as it’s quicker and by dictating you are more likely to use natural spoken language)
  • You think hard about the motivation for why you are saying each thing you are saying (just as an actor learning his lines will be imagining how that character feels)
  • Test yourself on presenting your lecture (recording yourself with a webcam is ideal). Time spent actually practicing your lecture is much more valuable than time spent reading through a script or just thinking about it.
  • When you have trouble remembering a step, think about how to explain it better - a good explanation is usually easier to remember than a bad explanation. If you are having big trouble remembering part of your lecture, that’s a danger sign that your audience will likely have trouble following it and remembering it too.
    Hope this is helpful, and good luck with your lectures.