Time yourself reading the following passage. Remember to use four speed techniques:
ELEMENTARY
MEMORY
By Philip Chambers
(Scorer and Chief Statistician at Memoriad '96)
One of the recurrent themes of the recent International Brain Club Conference was the notion that, although there are certain correct principles of memory, there are a number of different methods that allow you to memorise things. Memory is an individual and personal quality and if a particular memory system works for you, then you should use it. If a system doesn't work, you should either modify or reject it.
A good example of how the same information can be memorised in a number of different ways is the Periodic Table of chemical elements. The Periodic Table was independently developed by the Russian Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev and the German Lothar Meyer between 1868 and 1870. It is essentially a list of all the chemical elements arranged according to their properties - similar elements placed near to each other. Important trends can be seen as you move down a column (called a group) or across a row (called a period). In fact these trends allowed Mendeleev to predict, with remarkable accuracy, the existence and properties of elements that at the time were undiscovered.
So why memorise the Periodic table? There are several reasons, firstly students of chemistry find it a great aid in exams. Secondly it is a good basis to build your knowledge of chemistry - relating other information to the elements. Also, as many of those who have studied memory have found, the synergetic nature of the brain means that by improving your memory you improve your other mental skills as well. Besides that it's a very impressive feat to show off to your friends!
I have listed below, four different people's approaches to memorising the Periodic Table. Each one is subtly different. They are each suited to particular situations and have their own strengths and weaknesses...
The Eleven Location System by Dominic O'Brien:
Dominic O'Brien was asked to learn the periodic table in May 1994 on the way to Liverpool where he appeared on the 'Richard and Judy' show to talk about memory for students. In the time that it took him to fly from Heathrow to the studios he memorised not only all 110 elements but also their groups and weights to four decimal places. Pretty impressive I'm sure you'd agree, but he is World Memory Champion after all! So, how did he do it? He divided the periodic table into eleven groups as follows:
0) Noble gases 1) Alkali metals 2a) Alkaline-earth metals 2b) Zinc 3) Boron 4) Carbon 5) Nitrogen 6) Oxygen 7) Halogens Rare-earth metals Transition elements Actinides
He then assigned each of the groups of elements to a particular room. Each room was colour coded to give an extra link between the elements in each group. To remember the atomic numbers of each element he used the DOMINIC system of associating every number with a person (If you don't know how this works I suggest you read Dominic's book mentioned below). The people were then linked with the elements using imaginary objects triggered by the names of the elements. It's easiest to explain with some examples.
Here's how Dominic memorised the first four Noble Gases:
Helium, Neon, Argon and Krypton
"As we're making a start, we might as well use the chemistry lab as a place to store these gases. To remind you that they belong to group 0, picture a big blue football at the door of the lab. Football is a number shape for 0 and blue is the colour for that group.
As you enter the room the first thing you see is Otto von Bismark sitting in a tall, blue helium-filled balloon. This image will remind you that the atomic number of helium is 2. Otto von Bismark (OB = 02) from the DOMINIC SYSTEM is used as the person, and helium balloon provides the prop for the action.
02 Helium Otto von Bismark In helium balloon Person Action
...Next, you find John Major (No 10) Kneeling on the floor. He is lit up by a bright blue neon light which makes his suit glow blue. This complex image makes it easy to remember that neon's atomic number is 10.
...Moving on, you see Adolf Hitler (AH = 18) doing a spot of argon welding, causing blue sparks to fly off in all directions. Sitting studiously at her desk and wearing a blue dress is Claudia Schiffer (CS = 36) trying to figure out a cryptic clue from a crossword. Perhaps she's training for the Krypton Factor."
Dominic's system makes excellent use of visualisation and is flexible enough to add other information about the elements. My only slight concern is that using so few locations things may get a bit 'crowded' if you added a lot of extra information. For example the mass number of each element, their major uses and whether the element is a solid, liquid or gas at room temperature.
The Auditory Nonsense System by Philip Chambers:
This system once learned allows you to write down the chemical elements with the only limitation being how fast you can write, thus making it great for exams. It has the disadvantage that you can't use it as a basis for associating other information about the elements. Another limitation is that this system doesn't allow "random access". In other words, if someone asked you what the fifteenth element was, you would have to go right through from Hydrogen counting each element rather than saying 'Phosphorus' straight away.
The central principle is to simply take the symbols for the elements, in order of atomic number, and group them together to form pronounceable 'nonsense' words. For the first 20 this gives...
"HHe Li BeB CNOF Ne NaMgAl SiPS ClArK Ca"
Which is pronounced something like this...
"Her he lee beeb kern off knee namgal sips clerk car"
As you can see it is quite compact and could easily be memorised by reading it out loud a few times, in much the same way as you would go about learning a phrase in a foreign language.
The Visual Link System by Barry Mapp:
The beauty of the visual link system is its simplicity. You can use it to memorise the elements in order without knowledge of a "pegging" system, or a method for converting numbers into letters such as the Major System and the Dominic System. The system does however suffer from the same disadvantage as the previous system that it doesn't allow "Random Access".
Barry describes the technique as follows...
"Each element is converted into a single image or sequence of images on a 'sounds like' or phonetic basis. A picture is then created on a 'mental photographic slide' which connects the image of the previous element to the image of the element that follows it. There is no real storyline other than to create the picture associating the two element-images together. Note that there is a frequently recurring sound 'IUM' which does not have an easily identifiable image, and for this I create the image of a monkey (you could use something different) called IUM (the Indestructible Uncouth Monkey) and the image of this monkey is added to the mental picture for all elements ending in 'ium'."
Here is how Barry memorised the first six elements...
"Slide 1: Hide (behind a) row (or large)
Gems. (Hide Row Gem - Hydrogen).
Slide 2: (Run and jump into a giant shoe) Heel (and join) IUM.
(Heel IUM - Helium).
Slide 3: (Jumping from heel,) Lithe IUM (supple) falls onto Beryl.
(Lithe IUM - Lithium).
Slide 4: Beryl (takes off her beret and hits) IUM. (Beryl IUM
- Beryllium)
Slide 5: (IUM throws her beret which lands on a ) Boar (standing
on a car roof ) (Boar on - Boron).
Slide 6: (The boar jumps from the roof onto a) Car Bon(et - denting
it). (Car Bon - Carbon)."
The SEM3 System by Tony Buzan:
The SEM3 system or 'Self Enhancing Master Memory Matrix', to give it its full name, is a series of objects that act as mental 'pegs' to hang information from. The first 100 objects are based on the Major System. This works by converting numbers into letters using a special code that, by its very nature, allows itself to be memorised. The code is as follows...
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s, z, soft c | (The letter s, or z, is the first sound of the word zero.) |
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d, t th | (The letters d and t have one downstroke.) |
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n | (The letter n has two downstrokes.) |
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m | (The letter m has three downstrokes.) |
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r | (The letter r is the last (or fourth) letter of the word four.) |
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l | (L is 50 in Roman numerals. Or think of
a hand with 5 spread fingers, the index finger & thumb making an L shape.) |
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j, sh, soft ch, dg, soft g | (The letter j is the mirror image of 6.) |
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k, hard ch, ng,hard c, hard g, qu | (The letter K contains two number 7s.) |
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f, v | (The letter f, when handwritten, has two loops, similar to the number 8.) |
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b, p | (The letters b and p are mirror images of 9.) |
The code allows you to easily translate numbers into words. For example 82 becomes f (8) and n (2), adding a vowel gives the word fan. The same can be done for any number between 0 and 99. Women's World Memory Champion, Sue Whiting and the 'Mnemons' memory group have come up with a standard set of 100 words (See 'Use Your Head Magazine' Autumn 1994).
Having established the basic 100, it is
now possible to expand the matrix to 10,000.
This is done by taking the 100 objects and multiplying by 10 and
then by 10 again. You can do this by using your senses. (See 'Master
Your Memory' for details).
Using the SEM3 matrix you can assign one 'peg' to each element. For example element number 11 is sodium. 11 becomes 'dad' using the major system, so you could imagine squirting your Dad with a soda siphon (associated with sodium). Element number 29 (Copper) becomes 'nab' so you could imagine a policeman or copper, nabbing a burglar.
With practice it becomes really easy and fun to create vivid images. The SEM3 system has the added advantage that it is very easy to add extra information by simply increasing the detail in each imagined scene. For example the Mass Number of Sodium is approximately 22.99 (which becomes Nan, babe using the major system). So, after squirting your Dad with the soda siphon you could imagine your Nan drying him off and cradling him in her arms like a young babe.
You can see that with a bit of imagination and a basic knowledge of how your amazing memory works, memorising the chemical elements becomes easy. If you can memorise 110 elements think what else you could do. Encyclopedia Britannica here I come!
Further details can be found in the following books...
The Dominic System - "How To Pass Exams" by Dominic O'Brien, Headline, ISBN 0 7472 5047 2
SEM3 - "Master Your Memory" by Tony Buzan - David & Charles.
Taken from Synapsia Magazine Winter 1996