While theaters remain dark and performers take a break, this blog post will focus on making you a rock star, namely, an expert in geology by mastering the Memory Palace method.
Baby Powder for Alligators
When was the last time you saw an alligator use baby powder? Probably never. But if you had, you’d remember. The alligator towels off after a hot shower, liberally sprinkles himself all over with talcum powder, produces a big cloud of white dust, and smiles with satisfaction.
If you can see this picture in your mind, you’ve already mastered one of the most effective—and entertaining—techniques for memorizing information, the Memory Palace. The goal is to attach abstract information to simple images in a logical order.
The ancient Greeks and Romans used familiar spaces to create their memory palaces: their homes, public buildings, outdoor areas, and even the constellations in the heavens.
While the Ancients could reuse the same spaces again and again to memorize new information, their reference points grew over time to include any sequential items, such as the signs of the Zodiac and alphabetical lists—just like the one we’ll use now.
Build Your Own Memory Palace with Animals and Minerals
Let’s say you are studying geology and you need to learn Mohs Hardness Scale, a list of minerals from the most easily scratched (talc) to the most durable (diamond). We’ll use the Memory Palace method to memorize that list—backwards and forwards, and by position.
The first step is to work up an “animal alphabet.” Take a piece of lined paper and write down the numbers 1 through 10 on ten consecutive lines:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Now, write each of the first ten letters of the alphabet after each number:
1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G
8. H
9. I
10. J
Think of an animal that begins with each letter. Keep it simple and use animals that are easy to picture. Write down the first one that comes to you, or use my list below:
1. Alligator
2. Bear
3. Cat
4. Dog
5. Elephant
6. Fish
7. Gorilla
8. Hippo
9. Iguana
10. Jay
How to Memorize Mohs Hardness Scale
Our task is to conjure up a silly picture linking each animal to the mineral to be learned (or a word close enough to evoke the mineral’s proper name).
The first mineral on the table is talc. Having already envisioned an alligator patting himself all over with talcum powder, we won’t forget that talc is number one on the list.
The second element is gypsum, and the word is bear. Gypsum sounds to me like “gypsy.” So I imagine a bear all dressed up like a traditional gypsy reveler—flowing skirts, silver bangles, maybe a tambourine—dancing her heart out. The more senses involved, the better. If you can see, hear, and even smell the dancing gypsy bear, that is ideal! Put aside any feelings of foolishness. This is about creating a memorable image just for yourself. Over time, the silly associations will dry clear like glue and disappear, leaving you with just the information you need to recall.
The third element is calcite, and my animal is a cat. Calcite sounds similar to “call site,” which would be a roomful of telephone operators. With my mind’s eye, I picture dozens of cats seated at switchboards, wearing headsets, meowing annoyingly into the receivers, and inserting plugs into phone jacks. Imagine the cacophony! If you picked a different animal (crab, coyote, caterpillar, etc.), take a few seconds to visualize how they would move around the call site, what sort of sounds they’d make, and what it might feel like to have them brush against you.
Let’s take a moment to review our ABCs. Think of your first three animals, and you should remember the minerals with no problem. If you didn’t, go back and make the associations more vivid.
Mineral number four is fluorite, and most people choose dog as their word. Fluorite is related to the word fluorescent, so you could picture a pack of eerily glowing dogs running through your house. Fluorite is also phonetically similar to “fluoride,” which is in toothpaste. You could see a dog vigorously brushing his teeth until the toothpaste foams up so much that it totally engulfs his face. Whatever option you choose, be sure to exaggerate the action in size or scale. Over the top means memorable.
The fifth mineral is apatite and we’re going to connect it to elephant. Apatite should of course make you think of “appetite.” With the word elephant, you can surely imagine a huge one lying on his back after having gorged himself, his belly ballooning out.
We’ve arrived at the halfway point, where things get even more interesting. When the Memory Palace method was in use in the Middle Ages, mnemonists (memory experts) would mark off every fifth point with a meaningful symbol. Every fifth place would contain an image of a hand (five fingers), and every tenth place would include a cross (meant to represent X, the Roman numeral ten). So, as reinforcement for the elephant’s occupying the fifth point in our lineup, imagine that he is patting his bloated tummy with two outsized human hands.
Let’s review our first five elements now—in reverse order. If you can recall elephant, dog, cat, bear, and alligator (or whatever your animal words were), they should lead you directly to their respective minerals.
Repetition is your friend. I’ll repeat that, repetition is your friend. Any specialist will tell you that practicing something again and again is the best way to drill something into your mind and body.
To continue, mineral number six is feldspar, and we have to connect it to a fish. As weird as this rock’s name may seem, you can convert it phonetically to something that is more intuitive to you, like a “felled star” or “felt spar.” Let’s take the second one. Imagine two fish sparring, and sporting boxing gloves made of felt. That is all “felt spar” has to be.
Mineral seven is quartz. My list has gorilla as the animal. You could imagine gorillas playing the drinking game “quarters,” guzzling “quarts” of milk, or spryly juggling sparkling geodes of purple quartz crystal. Adding motion to your imagery (as well as sound and smell) makes it even more memorable.
We’ve made it to mineral number eight, topaz. The animal on my list is hippo. Those of us who grew up watching the animated Disney classic Fantasia often think of the “Dance of the Hours” ballet sequence when we hear “hippo.” That silly image may be a useful memory aid. Hippos that have been dancing for hours on end may want to take a breather and rest their feet. That’s where “toe pads” come in. See these footsore hippos cover their tootsies with big soft cotton pads for relief.
How are you holding up? These mental gymnastics can be fatiguing! Feel free to take a breather yourself. Once you’re refreshed, see if you can reconstruct the list forward and backward. Quiz yourself on specific positions. What is mineral number five? Number seven? What mineral corresponds to bear, dog, and fish?
We are in the home stretch! Mineral number nine is the longest and strangest-sounding one: corundum. (You know these gems better as rubies and sapphires.) There are not a lot of animals that begin with the letter “i,” and iguana is on my list. If you reduce corundum to “core and dumb,” you can make a picture in your mind of a dumb iguana (wearing a dunce cap), munching away loudly on an apple core Ridiculous? Absolutely! And therefore unforgettable.
Our last mineral is diamond, which on its own has a few different meanings: a precious jewel, a baseball field, and a card suit. If your “j” animal was jellyfish, see the sea creature sporting big sparkly diamond rings on each of its tentacles. If you picked the bird jay, you can imagine blue jays playing baseball. Remember: you must see actual birds on the field, not the Toronto Blue Jays in action. The minute you think, “oh, the Blue Jays are a team, so the scene in my head makes sense,” you are sunk. The scene in your head should not make sense. It should be outrageous, impossible, and unbelievable. That’s what makes it stick.
Test yourself again to see what you recall. Write out the whole list of minerals from 1 to 10. It may strike you that this is an awful lot of work to go through to remember a simple list of ten words. It is, at first. The more you practice, the less time it will take. Plus, the payoff is that the information is more likely to take root.
What Comes Next?
This skeletal list is just the starting point. If you were really in a geology course, you’d have to remember much more information about each mineral on the chart. Still, that can be a snap. You merely construct more elaborate scenarios to associate the information. Over the last 2,500 years, practitioners of the Memory Palace method have relied on the furnishings in a room (furniture, art, fixtures, etc.) to expand the volume of information around each point.
The legacy of the Memory Palace is preserved in modern-day expressions. When we tick off a list of things, for example, we often preface each element with “in the first place, in the second place, etc.” In fact, the shared origin of the words topic and topography remind us that things to be learned and locations are more intertwined than we realize.
You can memorize even longer lists by stretching your animal alphabet to “z.” Beyond that, there is another technique for numbered lists that goes on forever. That’s a lesson for another time.