How To Learn and Memorize Maths
How To Learn and Memorize Maths
How To Learn and Memorize Maths
B4
This strategy can be especially handy when using Memory
Palaces to acquire the massive amounts of mathematical
principles and formulas.
The Magnetic Memory Method Is Perfectly Suited For
That!
In sum, the building and development of Memory Palaces
takes only a small amount of time and effort. The next step
is learning how to fill the Memory Palaces you've prepared
with the information you want to memorize. This could be
anything, ranging from facts, lists of historical figures,
foreign language grammar or names and faces.
As a final suggestion, as you are filling out the Magnetic
Memory Worksheets, concentrate on the journey and make
it as vivid as possible. You can literally close your eyes and
pretend that you are "turning up the volume" on the
Memory Palace.
You can try this in the room you are currently in,
reconstructing it in your mind and then making the layout
bright, vivid and pumping with energy. It should almost be
as if you're casting some kind of spell or attempting to
manipulate reality like Neo in The Matrix. And manipulating
reality you are.
Next time you are out for a walk, shopping or just wandering
around the house, consider the hundreds of locations you
can use to build and extend Memory Palaces. The more we
pay attention to our surroundings, the more material we
have to work with.
As well, take every opportunity to visit places you've
previously lived or gone to school. Revitalizing your
familiarity with the locations you use to build your Memory
Palaces is not entirely necessary, but at the very least, you
should perform a mental walkthrough to ensure that you
have enough material for at least the first 10 stations and
ideally many more.
In addition, utilize the power of your imaginations and the
images it brings you. Harness the power of coincidences
such as those I related in the examples given in this book.
Make sure to remember the bicycle metaphor for memory
and suit the principles to your own needs by making
adjustments to the system taught in this book. You should
never be afraid to play around, amplify and use absurdities.
Test yourself and compound regularly or when necessary.
And always, always relax when doing memory work.
You should also spend time thinking about the kinds of math
principles you would like to learn or need to know. You
should analyze how you can group different rules together
and develop your understanding of math based on your
areas of interest and goals. You will see many more
connections by doing this.
It goes without saying that you should recite the math
principles and equations you've memorized as often as you
can. Practice Memory Palace recall while speaking with
friends or study partners. This means searching for the rules
using a specific principle or formula (mentally walking
through your Memory Palaces), rather than casting a hook
and hoping a math rule swims by and bites.
Finally, teach others what you have learned about
memorization skills. Talk about how you built your Memory
Palaces, the techniques of location, imagery and activity.
Give your friends and colleagues examples of how you've
memorized specific lines. Teaching others is one of the best
ways to compound information that we've learned and it
allows us to see other possibilities and new techniques we
may have missed.
From this point on, you are now more than equipped to
succeed with the Magnetic Memory Method. I hope that the
examples and instruction throughout this book have helped
you see the possibilities and options you have for creating
images along dedicated Memory Palace journeys that
enable you to memorize math concepts. If you have any
questions, you can contact us through me at any time. My
email is [email protected] and I endeavor to
answer all questions normally within 24-72 hours.
About the Author
Anthony Metivier completed his BA and MA in English
Literature at York University in Toronto, Canada. He earned a
second MA in Media and Communications from The
European Graduate School in Switzerland while completing
a PhD in Humanities, also from York. As the author of
scholarly articles, fiction and poetry, he has taught Film
Studies in Canada, the United States and Germany. He plays
the electric bass and is the author of the novel Lucas Parks
and the Download of Doom and The Ultimate Language
Learning Secret.
Be sure to visit http://www.magneticmemorymethod.com for
access to the free Magnetic Memory Method Podcast where
you'll hear interviews with memory experts like Jim Samuels
and Harry Lorayne (subscribers only) and language learning
giants like Luca Lampariello, David Mansaray and Sam
Gendreau. You'll also find Anthony Metivier's amazing
"Memory Training Consumer Awareness Guide," "Memory
Improvement Master Plan" and much, much more!
How To Memorize 9 Complex Formulas in 45 Minutes:
Bonus Interview with Math Expert Robert Ahdoot
If you haven't already, as a reader of this book, you are
entitled to view this video at no charge and with no strings
attached. Here's the link:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/o6a3dbanq9gbik6/AAALa
sFA4iPSxcR2Om3VdEpCa?dl=0
Here's the full transcript, edited for readability:
Anthony: Why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself
and then tell us what you've been working on the last couple
of days.
Robert: My name is Robert Ahdoot, the founder of
YayMath.org. And I found my way to you through the un-con
school. What I do at Yaymath.org is record my math video
lessons live in the classroom. I dress up in costumes and Yay
Math has been in existence for five years. We have over 5
million views and about 1.5 million minutes viewed per
month because people really enjoy the live student
interaction with teacher, the spontaneity, the authenticity,
the imperfection. And it is through this, that I found my way
to you, over the last few days after our initial conversation.
Since then, I've learned about what you do and have seen
how your practice of helping people use their memory is
accomplished through the Magnetic Memory Method.
So I've been learning about the Magnetic Memory Method
and I've been trying to put your tactics to use to help me in
my practice of memorizing math formulas because I mean,
even though I'm a math teacher, there's a slew of formulas I
still need to reference and look at my own crib sheets to
recall. However, at your suggestion, we're going to be
creating a mental crib sheet for me to memorize formulas
and that's what I've been doing. Pretty recently, it actually
didn't take me that long and I can't wait to share what I've
done with you and see what you think.
Anthony: Okay. So say a little bit more about these
formulas. What kinds of formulas are they? What
characterizes them and what region of math do they belong
to, so to speak?
Robert: So they're statistics formulas. Statistics has been
my latest craze, my latest passion. It's a sub-section of
mathematics that I've been filming most recently and that
I'm admittedly the newest to, which has been very exciting
to learn on the fly. So I'm using your methods to help me
remember these formulas for myself. And not only that, I'll
be able to usher this methodology to class after class after
class that I end up teaching and give them these same tools
so that they won't always be always fretting about what the
formulas are or how to use them.
One of the number one questions I get is, "What are all the
formulas we need for the test?" They say that. I end up
writing them on the board and then just by repetition, I end
up remembering them – not always. And sometimes I don't
remember them and I say like, I would have to commit them
to short-term memory and that's what students do, but using
this Magnetic Memory Method, hopefully it'll be committed
to long-term memory. And I hope to demonstrate that to you
today and it's going to be fun! Can I tell you about the
process about what it was like for me?
Anthony: Yeah. Absolutely. But one thing I think would be
very interesting for people is, in terms of getting these
formulas into long-term memory, what are one or two or
even more of specific benefits beyond just passing a test
that you could think of that someone is going to benefit from
in having this ability?
Robert: Okay. That's a good question. Because I definitely
refuse to teach towards tests. I believe that we need some
form of assessment for students in general, but I think the
confidence that students, such as me in this case, can pick
up a process on the fly and completely learn something that
they previously had not known nor were able to do well. I
mean it's one thing to just write down formula after formula
after formula and just try to commit it that way, but the
process was very invigorating, I've got to say because I was
able to take these things – and it was their story and images.
That's some of the things that you talk about. And it was fun!
So, not only does it increase the confidence in my own
capacity to learn, but it makes the process of learning fun
and that's pretty hard to do generally when it comes to
memorizing formulas. They're just a bunch of symbols to the
person looking at them for the first time. But, turning that
sort of process into a game or a stroll down memory lane, it
was kind of cool to be able to do that. So I appreciate that.
Anthony: Okay. So, tell us then, about your process.
Robert: Okay. Yeah, the process. I don't know if you've
known this and I've been curious to talk to you about this. If
you're going into what you call a Memory Palace and you're
conjuring up images from your life that are personal to you,
in fact maybe very near and dear to you, I think it's just a
matter of time before you trip up over some sort of
emotionality or even vulnerability. It becomes almost like my
process what I'm going to reveal to you today is stuff that I
grew up with as a kid. Normally, if you and I were talking – as
much as I enjoy your company and enjoy hearing what you
have to say – I wouldn't really talk to you about what I did
when people got snappy in my house. You know? And that
happens in this story.
People get snappy and I'm replying to them in formula. I'm
replying to them in formula speak and so there's a level of
vulnerability that is required – at least for myself to face this
type of stuff and then, furthermore to be able to project that
out and share with other people. Have you noticed that,
that's normal? It's not necessarily going into a building and
floor 1, 2, 3 with an elevator and that makes sense. It could
be like something occurred in that building or people were in
that building that conjured up something from your past. Is
that normal or is that just me?
Anthony: Yeah. It's certainly something that – I haven't
really myself experienced that. I'm a pretty neutral guy and
sort of scientific about things and for some reason I just have
a kind of clinical ability to use the Memory Palace without
really running into ghosts so to speak. There are people who
have told me that they cannot use certain places because of
a history of violence or some sort of thing that has happened
in that house or association. And that would be that they're
bumping into either a direct or indirect memory.
The other thing that sort of goes along with this is you
mentioned that there were things you wouldn't really want to
relate that have gone through your mind in order to
memorize some of this material. And this is one of the most
controversial things about mnemonics and memory
techniques and memory tricks or whatever you want to call
them is that they do involve certain extreme images that can
incorporate sexuality, violence, usually cartoon violence, but
violence nonetheless because you're trying to evoke what I
would call the rubberneck effect, like a car accident, you
simply have to turn your head and look.
There's just something about our ability to imagine things
that can be quite shocking. And that, in itself, creates
emotional reactions. And that's certainly something that was
a problem for me because it's not always the most pleasant
thing to think about these sorts of things. But at the end of
the day, it's the difference between being able to memorize
something and not being able to memorize it. And the fact of
the matter is that the mnemonics, the associative imagery
are tools and if you do the exercise correctly, they're really in
fact, short term and you don't need to obsess upon them or
anything.
So the most important thing that I think, and you don't have
to go see Dr. Freud to do it, is just simply not to judge your
images. Just go with what comes to your mind. Have a
clinical distance to them. Don't get too involved, but if there
is emotion there and it's comfortable, then definitely exploit
it. Leverage it. Use it for all it's worth. And just to quickly add
something, the history of mnemonics was deeply suppressed
in certain historical periods because of this character. It was
considered blasphemy, for example, to use associative
imagery to memorize biblical verses because of the kinds of
images that are used. So they are certainly things that are
very controversial in that area, but my advice to anybody is
just to develop a bit of scientific distance from it and when
emotions comes that you're uncomfortable with, then use
them for all they're worth because what is memorable can
be linked to what isn't memorable in order to make it
memorable. And that's a very, very powerful tool.
Robert: Nice. Nice. And definitely, I think fortunately I've
walked the border or a fine line of exactly what you're
saying. It's basically what I would never have really had a
need to share with you, but if you and I were sitting over a
couple of beers, I would have no problem talking about what
happened in my old house. And I plan to right now! So, it's
kind of a fun way to get to know me.
Anthony: We'll have beer later.
Robert: Yeah. Or we'll just do it over Skype and just talk
about my childhood through statistics formulas. I mean,
you've got to say, it's kind of – it's just kind of nifty. So yeah,
it has definitely brought up stuff, but nothing in a way that
was detrimental. And I definitely leveraged the emotion to
get into it. So I have like hand motions. So I'm psyched. Can I
show you what I've learned?
Anthony: Yeah. Please, by all means. But let's have a look at
the formulas first:
Robert: All right. Great. So we moved out of my childhood
house many years ago, maybe 10 years ago. I was growing
up in Maryland. I figured that was the first place to start if I
was going to do this Memory Palace technique to go back to
the place where I grew up because I haven't been there in so
long and this would be a great way to experience it. So here I
come. I figure I'm walking through the door. So stop me if
there's anything I can do better. I'm new to this, but I'm
trying it out hard.
So I walk through the door and I get to the dining table.
That's the first thing there. Something that's going on usually
when we're dining is that for some odd reason, we never
really had an emphasis on napkins when we were dining. It's
like napkins were, oh, yeah, I can use a napkin, but I never
really thought to use one until one was offered. So that has
gotten me in trouble over my life with manners and things
like that at tables as an adult.
So I walk in to this dining table full of everyone, family,
extended family and I say to them Napkin! And then, they
look back at me and they're like, Napkin X and that's the X I
have to think of. They're just saying to me. So they say,
Napkin, No. And then they say No for emphasis. And I say
back to them, please, please stop with the X. And an uncle
that I know, is sort of like a peacemaker and he goes, Quit
saying X to the napkin request. So it's like I saw, I want a
napkin. They said No to the napkin. They said No twice. I said
Please, stop saying X (no) and then someone said, quit
saying No to the napkin request, which is sort of played out
in my mind there. What do you think? Am I on the right track
here?
Anthony: Well a lot depends on what formula that allows
you to write out on a piece of paper.
Robert: That was the binomial distribution formula, binomial
probability.
Anthony: Okay. And…
Robert: Do you have it with you? Can you follow along?
Anthony: Yes. So the binomial distribution. This Memory
Palace journey enabled you to recall the binomial probability
distribution – the name of the formula or actually the formula
itself?
Robert: The formula itself.
Anthony: So what about the napkin makes – I see there's an
N in the formula.
Robert: That's the N for napkin. That's where my mind went.
Anthony: But what does it really represent?
Robert: It represents the number of trials within – it's like
trials meaning like flipping of a coin or rolling of a die or
something like that. It represents the number of trials.
Anthony: Oh, okay. And then you mentioned the X coming
two times. And I see that there.
Robert: Yeah. They say No to the napkin request and they're
saying with emphasis. That's why that factorial symbol is like
sort of exclamation. It's an easy segue. It's sort of like No! No
napkin! No twice.
Anthony: Okay.
Robert: I feel weird.
Anthony: It is weird, but the fact of the matter is that it's
working. And one of the strange things, one of the really
weird aspects of all of this is that we can explain to other
people how that we came to be able to recall something by
decoding this imagery. But ultimately these examples are
useful only to us. So if you put mnemonic examples into
Google, you will find thousands, if not millions, of people who
have shared examples. And I think they're a barrier to entry
for a lot of people because, okay, napkins, your family, this
sort of thing. It only makes sense to you. But people really
have to make their own, like you've done. And it's wonderful
that you're able to recall that and I assume that, that's going
to have a particular function in an exam or in a practical
setting where you're trying to calculate something that will
enable you to accomplish a goal.
Robert: Right. You're creating the ability for people to do it
themselves. That's what you're trying to do. You're not trying
to learn it for them. You're trying to help them learn it for
themselves. And I get that. I get that. All right. Continue our
next question.
Anthony: How does that feel to be able to do that?
Robert: I'm saying that I am an academic so I jumped in
with two feet and I will admit that the process was weird
because it was against the methodologies that you've
already learned before. We're indoctrinated with these
learning models, just speaking from one educator to another.
We're indoctrinated with learning models that pretty much
stop more or less at, are you a visual learner? Are you an
auditory learner? Are you a kinesthetic learner? Do you learn
by doing or some sort of combination of those? And then
there are students who say, I need to be shown or I need to
look at it or I need to listen. And we stop there.
What's cool is that this is creating an entirely different genre
where you're going into your own mind and taking a stroll
and that, to me, is weird, but in a very good way because as
long as you have a sense of adventure and you're open for a
challenge in something that is new, then I think it can work
well. So that was the process. It was like, I was for it, but I
had to get over the act of going like (watch video to see
Robert's gestures) I was doing this to myself in the room,
empty room chilling here. I was like, X X, what am I doing? I
think of family feud, the show, that's what comes to my
mind. Mnemonics that are only personal. Family feud has
that thing, it was like, let's see Eggs and it was like X No.
Eggs is not an answer.
Anthony: It raises an interesting point, actually, because
there is benefit from actually incorporating physical
movement into it. And also actually moving. If you are using
a Memory Palace that you actually have access to, there's
also a benefit to being in it and moving from room to room.
So one of my greatest experiments with that was
memorizing the lyrics to a song in German and actually
physically moving from station to station in the memory
palace as I recited it.
And to what extent that is actually necessary or helped the
process, I don't particularly have any hard data or anything
like that, but it's just sort of a memorable thing to do and it
just adds, it compounds, it gives more oomph to the process,
if you can do that. I also heard something from someone and
I tried it myself. It was very interesting. She walks through
the Memory Palaces that she can actually visit with her eyes
closed, running her hands across the wall to increase this
sort of sensory, spatial material memory of the place itself
which is part of this whole idea of the Magnetic Memory
Method, that you're magnetizing things by how you're
treating them or using them.
Robert: Right. That makes sense.
Anthony: So let's hear another one.
Robert: Okay. Sure. So my reply to all this X, to my napkin is
when I say to them, when you go like X this to me, it makes
me have negative feelings about you. It makes everyone
have negative feelings about you. So you going like this X
makes everyone negative to you. So take it back and back to
you. It was like a sort of retaliation. So if you have the
formula, you'll see that it's Mu, which is the mean. It's like a
U. It looks like a U. When U go like this X, it makes everyone
E, the exponential, feel negative about U and so I retaliate by
doing it back to them. X
Anthony: Now I'm seeing very clearly exactly how that's
working.
Robert: Then, the one uncle, the peacemaker, he goes,
easy, easy, easy. All right? Actually, it's easy, easy, ET. There
were three formulas there. The first one there is, EZ, all this
please and quit it is over now. Over now. Hopefully you're
seeing that.
And the second one, he's saying, EZ again. Please take out
your bowl. And then I think I wrote the formula wrong to you.
I rechecked. The third one isn't easy, it's ET. So it's ET, take
out your soup, or your spoon now. So there was a bowl and a
spoon. So he's basically saying it's time to eat. So saying it
again, the first easy is all the please and quit it is over now.
The second easy is, take out your bowl. The third one is ET,
take out your spoon and that's all over now. The second too I
know are square root of now. I see it though, that it's over
now. Are you…kudos to you that you're able to follow along
this crazy narrative.
Anthony: I follow it exactly even though I don't know these
symbols and I don't know exactly what that shape of the
bowl represents.
Robert: Sigma. Standard deviation, but I needed a symbol
like a bowl. You did something with garden shears last time
we spoke. And I took a queue from that. I was like, okay, just
some kind of symbol while we're eating and we were at a
table. So just it makes sense that a bowl and a spoon is
there.
Anthony: Yeah. Well that's exactly the sort of thing that you
want to be doing, which is substituting, associating and
really applying these techniques. And the other thing that's
really great that you're doing is you're making a context for
it. It's not like a bowl and then Sandra Bullock, but it's a bowl
and a spoon.
Robert: Right. Right. Right.
Anthony: And although on the paper I'm looking at,
although you have EZ, you mentioned that it's actually ET.
And in my mind the first thing I'm thinking of is the dinner
scene in the movie ET. Right? I don't recall exactly that
there's a bowl and a spoon, but there's something where
they're in the dining room with him or even a restaurant I
think, at one point. So even my mind as I'm listening begins
to work on this and who knows if I'll ever see this calculation
again or this formula again, but I may have some recall of
something.
Robert: Sure. Exactly. You know that formula and what it – it
can be easily translated to you for you to create your own
process and I get that. I get that. So it gets really good now
for the last three formulas that I memorized, okay?
Anthony: But just before we move ahead, can I ask a
question?
Robert: Yeah. Sure.
Anthony: Confidence intervals, you have at the top. Is that
just something you don't need to memorize because you
know it through familiarity?
Robert: I do. I did. I had that as part of the story. The part of
the story was I was trying to work on the narrative, but I
stumbled with the act of my gaining my confidence though
because it's – you have to know the vocabulary of it. And so
at this point I would say creating a different Memory Palace
for the vocabulary. Like what is a binomial distribution? What
is a poison [ph] distribution? What is a confidence interval?
Those types of things. I think you have to know what those
are in addition to this, or in tandem with this or I think it's
possible if you get good at this to weave confidence interval
into this current Memory Palace as well. I'm saying the
definition of what it is. You know. It's a lot because you have
to know the definition and then you'll be able to do the
calculations with the definition.
So I think knowing the definition is probably more important,
but it's easier to remember the definition than these
formulas. I'm saying it both as someone who teaches it and
someone that is trying to learn these formulas. Formulas are
a beast. They're so cryptic whereas if you could explain, like
you said in our last conversation, being able to explain
something that's very challenging in a single sentence. And
from the sentence you create an image and then from the
image you create your Memory Palace. So it's a different
beast to memorize the definition. What do you think about
that?
Anthony: Well I think that with greater experience, you may
be able to incorporate that as you continue developing.
However, that said, I think there's a relationship here
between vocabulary and grammar when using Memory
Palaces for learning a language. So for example, there are a
lot of vocabulary rules that apply to words that look
differently in different situations. So one of the questions I
always get is do you memorize all of the different
permutations of a word with itself or what do you do? And I
suggest a separate Memory Palace for the rules in many
cases. I mean, grammar is incredibly complex and it's not
really something that I've done a whole lot of work on yet.
Nonetheless, there is a benefit to having Memory Palaces or
a cheat sheet for grammar rules in a Memory Palace and
being able to cross-index them, so to speak. So you have
specific instances, like let's say that a word is a formula that
has a definition and you can memorize sort of the sound and
the meaning of the word at the same time, but it needs to be
cross-indexed or so with a grammatical rule in some cases.
So if you're able to sort of jump from one Memory Palace to
the other, it's almost like Tesla rays or something like that.
Robert: Everyone's fantasy to teletransport. I've always
wanted to do that.
Anthony: But in terms of gender for certain words, you can
just incorporate certain symbols. One of the examples that I
give that I've used a lot is a boxer or boxing gloves is always
somehow incorporated into an image with a masculine
gender, or a skirt with a feminine gender or fire as part of
neutral. But definitely, I think that, that is a very interesting
issue that people need to explore on their own and come up
with solutions once they know the method. But it sounds as
though the real beast, as I think you put it, is the formulas
themselves. And you've cracked the code as we've seen
from the two of these things. So really the English definition
is probably easy peasy next to this.
Robert: It would be easier. It would be easier next to this
because it's a conceptual thing. You can explain, and I've
explained that numerous times to students that confidence
interval is like the interval at which you believe the true
population lies. It's like if you do a survey and you say that
80% of people believe in climate change in my survey and
then you do some interval somewhere between 80% give or
take 2% is the true population percentage that believes in
climate change. It's like – that's – once you understand the
definition, then the beast is this thing. And I would need to
cross-index. I believe in that. I would need to cross-index.
Okay.
Anthony: Are these all the confidence intervals or just the
ones you selected for this particular exercise?
Robert: These are pretty much – there are three general
confidence intervals. One for P, which is a percentage. One
for X bar, you see that is for means, for average. And one for
standard deviation, the bowl, the sigma. There are three of
them there. Basically you do a sample study and then you
ask yourself to what degree does my sample apply to the
population at large. That's basically what a confidence
interval is. And these are pretty much those three, at least
with the introductory statistic studies, those three.
Anthony: Okay. Do you want to do some more?
Robert: Sure. I could do some more. I'll do these last three
ones and then I wanted to share with you a little brief story
about how, unbeknownst to me, I was doing your methods
without even realizing it. And before we had even met, I
wanted to tell you. The kids love it. It's one of the best videos
that people like. So I'll end with that one. But basically, after
all this stuff [you've already heard], I'm not really hungry –
all this yelling back and forth. Take out your bowl. Take out
your spoon. It sounded very sort of like dictating to me. So
when I was a kid to blow off steam, I would play Nintendo.
And one of my games on Nintendo was Ninja Guiden and it
was a Ninja game.
Anthony: I remember that one.
Robert: You remember Ninja Guiden? And so, I just remember
because what prompted me was. It's called ki square. It looks
like a throwing star. So that's just how I – that was my in, the
throwing star. So it goes like this. Now, one sword. So it's like
the minus sign here. Here's the minus sign and the sword,
you know, is like this. Now, one sword. And the opponent
says, two swords. And then there are two throwing stars. So
now one sword, two swords, "s squared" and that's over two
throwing stars. And that's twice around the bowl. I don't
know why it's around the bowl. It's probably because I didn't
want the bowl and I wanted to go play Nintendo. I just made
that one up. I just did that one on the fly, but it works.
After I play the game, I'm hungry again. I'm hungry again, so
I go back to the kitchen and they present the food. Now,
here. See, that's N equals. Now here is the equals. All right.
So here we go, more of my past. My parents were born in
Iran so I grew up with a whole array of Iranian cuisine. And
I'm going to tell you what one of those dishes was, it was call
Zettesh Polo [ph]. It's sort of a raisin rice. Okay. So I have
zettesh polo. Two servings of the zettesh. That's Z squared.
So zettesh polo with quince. That was another thing it was
served with. And that's poured all over two eggplants.
Are you following me with the formula where it says it [refers
to formulas written on the form]? And then the second dish
was one serving of zettesh and then the bowl is back, so you
pour it in the bowl and that's over one serving of eggplant.
But I'm hungry, so I want that twice. That's the squaring. So
again, now, picturing I took a flight over to Germany and I
was hanging out with you and we were having the beers. I
would have no problem explaining to you that I grew up in an
Iranian household with Iranian cuisine and Zettesh Polo was
one of them. Zettesh Polo is raisins with rice and quince and
that eggplant would've been on the table too. I would have
no problem explaining that to you, but had it been for this
opportunity I never would've gone there, probably. I would've
talked about relevant stuff. So that's what I'm saying.
Anthony: Do you have any alternative ideas that you could
use to also memorize this stuff that comes to mind?
Robert: Alternative ideas? How do you mean?
Anthony: You've gone to this particular dish and how it was
involved in your culture and so forth. But, if you were
pressed to come up with different set of information, do you
think that you could have an alternative mnemonic
associative imagery?
Robert: Sure. I mean isn't the list infinite?
Anthony: It could well be. But I'm just curious because as
we're saying, everyone has their own take, but a lot of
people will wonder, what if I don't have anything? So I'm just
trying to think…
Robert: So what if I don't have anything? Well I mean, you
have to – okay, look, as someone that's new to this, I think
my, it was finding where I reside within the palace. What are
the images associated? What are the actions? That to me
was the challenge. And I would be sort of lost in thought
thinking about that. The second I come up with an applicable
narrative, an applicable Memory Palace, then I would be able
to do it. And I'm saying I'm not – it didn't take that long, but
it was definitely a lot of effort. I was sitting here this
morning. I was thinking, where am I? What am I doing?
Who's around? What are they saying? What do I smell? How
do I feel? What's the temperature in the room? These are the
things that – and so it's not an easy process, by any means.
But, once you're there, it starts to hit. It's sort of like it comes
in waves.
But, I wouldn't, without wasting your time, be able to come
up with another palace on the spot or something that would
make sense to me, like I could go to [audio gap] quail. ZPQ
would be zebras and pigs and quail, but they don't really
have any particular personal meaning to me, but I would
have no problem. And then elephants on the bottom. I
wouldn't have a problem remembering it, you know like you
said, you call it the training wheels. You use them to usher in
the memory into your head and then once it's in there, then
you can take off the training wheels. You don't necessarily
need to remember zebras and pigs and quails and elephants,
but maybe the fact that I've said it three times will make me
take off the training wheels.
Anthony: Right. Right. Right. Well, just for the benefit of
people watching this, I think that one of the things to be said
is, if you're not able to have Z squared with P and Q,
associated with something so convenient as a dish, which I
actually want to say something about that in a second, but if
you didn't have that, you could for instance you gave the
example of a zebra, a pig and a quail. Well, you could have
the zebra swinging some sort of an appropriate weapon at
the pig who is then being attacked by the quail at the same
time, or somehow get all these images in there. But the point
is, without a personal association, the technique is to
exaggerate the violence or exaggerate the action or to make
everything big and vibrant and colorful and just zooming
with action so that you're creating this rubberneck effect if
you're not able to bring anything personal to it. So I think
that is a clue for people who are just like, well I don't have
any exotic dish that sounds just like that.
But what I do want to say about that is that one of the most
amazing things that I've noticed both in myself and others
when they start to get into this stuff, I don't have any data
on the unconscious mind for this, but it seems as if the
unconscious mind seems to arrange things conveniently. And
that there seems to be just an absolute overflow of
coincidental opportunity to link things.
Again, I don't know how to account for that, or test it
scientifically, but it's my impression. It's my impression on a
personal level, anecdotal level and an anecdotal level from
other people. And it almost feels as if there's sort of a
reverse undertow or something like that where the mind
prepares things in advance and is just ready there for you as
if it knows. Again, I don't want to get into woo woo or
pseudoscience or bizarre things, but that's the feeling that I
have. And it's just almost too convenient at some points. And
I don't know if that's something that people can cultivate or
not, but it is something to think about and focus on allowing
to happen.
And that's one of the sort of things that you describe. Well,
what am I going to do? Where am I? What's the
temperature? Who's here? That's a process of allowing
something to happen. And when you kind of just get out of
the way, it starts to come and you get this kind of effect that
I'm talking about, convenience, convenient imagery just sort
of popping up. So I'm curious, did you do anything to relax
yourself, which is one of the key things I teach in order to
enable this kind of flooding up of imagery?
Robert: I did. Again, as a teacher myself, I believe in
creating space to learn. And so, I cleared the morning. I had
a good breakfast. I slept well. And so once I sat down, I was
fully focused and without other sort of stresses of the mind
or in my life in the way. I do that as a learning practice
automatically. So I'm glad that you make that goal explicit.
That's a very, very good explicit goal that you have.
Can I just comment about your claim about the subconscious
mind, the unconscious mind? I think it's so interesting and a
very interesting claim and makes a lot of sense and my
reason as to why, my guess is that we're always in survival
mode and it seems like the brain's role in survival is to create
predictability, to create order. So it would make sense that it
would do that subconsciously in the face of all of this chaos,
that it's just ready to go to put things into buckets so that we
could have some level of predictability and predictability
leads to survival. So I think that that's a very, very plausible
claim and one that I'm going to think about a long time after
our conversation.
Anthony: There's certainly a lot of related research into the
unconscious that they've done through certain tests and so
forth that relate to this that definitely can be investigated,
something to get into at a certain point. One of the other
things that I wanted to ask you about is that, it sounds as if
you've managed to do all of this, which is actually pretty
substantial, in one room. Is that the case?
Robert: Yeah. I did it in one room.
Anthony: And do you feel that you could go to, say, the
confidence intervals information without having to first visit
the binomial probability distribution information? Or do you
need to start at the beginning?
Robert: Now maybe I could start at any room, but at the
beginning, I needed the full tour. I needed to go into the
house. I needed to see the dining table first. I needed to go
into the family room and play Nintendo and then I needed to
go into the kitchen for the dishes. So I think early on, I
needed to go from room to room and now, especially with
this coaching that you're giving me, I can start in one room.
Anthony: Now, what is your, assuming all of this material –
you were able to retain it after spending really what sounds
like a pretty insubstantial amount of time this morning…
Robert: Yeah, this morning.
Anthony: … What I want to ask, even though you're not
actually going to do this, if you had to produce this
information on a test, say next week, and assuming that you
maintained your recall through rehearsing it several times
between now and then to make sure that it sticks and to re-
amplify it, what is that test situation going to look like? What
do you expect to see on the exam? And how do you predict
that you would use these constructions that you've built
inside of a memory palace in order to assist you in passing
that exam and being successful?
Robert: Right. That's a good question because many times I
think the important part of an exam is not only to know the
formula but to know when it applies, on which problem to
use it and in which problem to apply it. It's sort of like
knowing when to use a screwdriver or a wrench or a
hammer. It's the same idea. You have to know when to use
which tool.
And so what I would do, is that just given like if I'm trying to
embody what it's like for a student to take a test with the
pressure and all that stuff and the fear of not remembering I
would suggest coming into the exam and just going through
my memory palace, going through that process and writing
down all of the formulas at the top of the page, just getting
all of them down. Getting all of them down would be really
important. At least that takes the pressure off from having to
recall it at any specific moment.
From there, knowing when to apply which formula to which
problem is exactly what you're saying about the cross-
indexing because you would need to look for key words
within the problems. The problems would say, for example,
what is the confidence interval estimate if my sample size if
40 people and my margin of error is 2%?
You know they would give you that N. They would give you
the E. They would give you the P. They would give you the Q.
and they would give you all those things, but being able to
cross-index, knowing to use that confidence interval formula
for that problem would be an entirely – I feel like a different
Memory Palace that you need to teletransport to, unless you
embed it with in.
Like I said, as I get more advanced, what I'm trying to do, is
I'm trying to model what it's like for someone that's going
into your methods with fresh eyes and help your viewers
figure out this process as someone that's doing this basically
from square one. And so yeah, I think as of now I would need
to do the cross-index method where you have a different set
of rules and a different narrative, different palace, different
images, different actions that would be able to reference the
narrative of the formulas themselves. As of now, I have not
been able to create an expanded version that includes all of
them.
Anthony: How long do you think just knowing where you're
at now and not knowing how fast you could get and how
accurate you could get, knowing what you know about
standard exams in this area, how much time do you think
you would need to invest in sufficiently memorizing and then
rehearsing the material so that you were confident that you
had it available as a crib sheet in your mind in order to be
successful in a standard exam, an exam of consequence that
would make a difference in a student's life to be able to pass
it?
Robert: Right. Right. Right. How long? Well I guess that's
relative. I think I would say I would tell you that being
vaguely familiar with these formulas before, I know that
they're – for example I know that there are confidence
interval formulas. In fact, I know that there are three
confidence interval formulas. I knew that going in, but I
didn't know what they were except by just looking. I'd have
to look at the papers. It took me 35 or 40 minutes to
remember nine formulas. And then with that, I think you can
say double that time to get the concepts as well as like what
a confidence interval is, what a binomial distribution is, what
they're used for and those types of things, which are,
honestly, more important than the formulas themselves. You
have to be able to define what you're talking about before
you take out the tool from the toolbox.
But, I'm telling you 35, 40 minutes for nine formulas is very
efficient. And it's not going anywhere especially if now I have
the narrative. I can take it with me everywhere. I don't have
to consult notes all the time. I don't have to write down again
and again. That was my method before, was to write the
formula. I said to myself, well, if I don't have the formula
memorized, let's see how I feel about that after writing it five
times. And then I'll reevaluate whether I've memorized it. So
I'd write it down five times. So in answering your question,
it's not only a matter of time that's beneficial, but it's the
process. It's the process. It's not lame. It's not a waste of
time. It's not a drag. It's not a drag on your consciousness.
It's more of like a, Where am I? Where am I? It's
introspective, which I like. I like that a lot as weird as it was
at first.
Anthony: Do you think that there are any students that this
method would either not appeal to or just be outright wrong
for?
Robert: Yes, I do. I come across a lot of students. I think
anyone – and this is not a judgment or any lack of respect for
any students or any type of student out there. I think what's
happening in education today is that some people really
more and more are demanding a spoon feeding system, in
which you just say, this is what it is. This is what you need to
memorize. Here is what they are. And then they'll go through
the process of just trying to pound it into their brain and then
once it's done, in survival mode, they'll forget about it and
move on. Any student that insists on the results only, that
insists on not really focusing on process, that insists on doing
it one way that has worked before and not ready to question
or adopt new methodologies, this isn't for them. This isn't for
them because it seems like you're sort of walking backwards.
You could be spending time working on formulas. You could
be spending time making flash cards. You could be spending
time doing that stuff that has worked and served you in the
past. Why would I want to think about going back in my past
and talking to my family at the dining table and doing like
this? Napkins, No No No (makes X symbols with his arms).
It's very different. And so if you're not ready to step outside
your comfort zone and sort of confront a new method that
you've never even considered before, then yes, it's better to
stick to the flash cards. Or I think you, of all people would not
mandate your method to anyone that had sort of a tangible
amount of trepidation going in. Like, I don't know, Memory
Palace? … not really for me. You wouldn't want to force it on
them. They have to be ready to do the work and go into their
mind. Does that make sense?
Anthony: It's certainly voluntary. It's got to be voluntary.
You've got to be into it. But I think that a lot of people don't
do it because actually I think that the term Memory Palace
turns a lot of people off. I think it's an incredibly sexy term…
Robert: I do too.
Anthony: … but I heard from one guy who said that he
couldn't even get started because he disliked the term so
much. And he told me – this was an 80-year-old man – he
told me that he finally came up with "apartments with
compartments." That was his preferred term. I just said, hey
man, whatever works. Go with it. Call them "red chickens in
a field." Whatever you want. Just get over the hump of what
it's called and get over the fact that – it's not that it's just
one step back to go into your mind and start doing all this
sort of work, but it's really two or three steps back because
you need to learn the technique in the first place.
Robert: Absolutely.
Anthony: But it's kind of like being a bit of a person who
gets invited to the cockpit. You see all the instrument dials
and the plane is already flying. I remember when I was a kid,
we were going to Disneyland and this was way back before
people were flying planes into buildings and the pilot, or the
stewardess came out and said, hey, do you want to come
see the cockpit? And I was like, sure! I was like nine years
old. And I went up to the front. I was able to actually see the
two guys sitting there and everything out in the sky and I
just got the sense of wonder of this extremely – it seems
extremely complicated.
So at first encountering this it's kind of like visiting the
cockpit and you see and you'll say I'll never be a pilot. I'll
never know how to do all this stuff. It's just overwhelming.
But then, let's just say, you decide to give it a try and before
you ever get that plane into the sky, there's a bit of training
that's involved. You've got to understand this. You've got to
understand that. Oh, there's this principle. There's that
principle. But once you get that plane into the sky once or
twice, well every time that plane has to go to the pickup
thing, it's got to pick up the passengers and it's got to taxi to
the runway. But as soon as it gets to the runway, it goes into
the sky and it flies and it does it again and again and again.
And every time it's successful.
So that's basically what this is. So you first see the wonder.
You give it a try. You try to learn the technique and then you
learn to fly and you come back and you pick up more and
more passengers. The passengers being the memories, the
material you've memorized. And then you taxi to the runway
and then you get up in the sky. And it's not a bad metaphor
as well because eventually the plane is going to land and if
you don't keep fueling the jet, the memories are going to
fade, but you'll pick up new ones or you'll pick them up again
because the same passengers sometimes take the same
flight. So I think that's a really nice metaphor that I came up
with on the "fly" for how this all works, but you definitely
have to step back before you fly every time.
Robert: You definitely have to step back.
Anthony: But, do you think it's a worthy investment?
Something that you would gladly teach others to do?
Robert: Yeah. It's definitely a worthy investment. I think it
should be an offering because let's talk about the guy that
was uncomfortable with [the term] Memory Palace. If
someone is uncomfortable with "Memory Palace," then they
have one of two choices. They can say "apartments with
compartments" and now I'm ready to work with you, or they
can say, Memory Palace, I'm not into it and they back away.
It's all about their attitude. It's all about their attitude. How
they approach the thing. Do they use it as an opportunity to
find their own in? To give something a try, a reasonable try to
take those few steps back and learn the methodology and
move forward? Or are they going to look for some scapegoat
excuse, I don't like the word "Palace." I'm sure you're going
to have people that say – "I don't need a Palace. I'm not
royalty. I don't believe in that." And then they'll back away.
It's just an excuse to not do it. So I think what you're saying
is right, voluntary.
I believe it should be an offering. I'm going to offer it to my
students as a methodology, but at the end of the day, it has
to come from the learner because it's your journey. It's your
images. Even our conversation early on, what we were
stumbling on was for you to create your images when it
came to these formulas. And then your aha moment was so
helpful in that it was really about me creating these learning
journeys or this Memory Palace journey because this is my
craft. This is what I do for a living. This is what I try to help
people do. So I appreciate the fact that you turned it around
to the learner. I think that's the same advice that you need
to give all your learners is that it's really up to them to try it
out and see if it works for them. But they have to take those
two steps back and really learn the cockpit, you know?
Anthony: Yeah. I think we should just clarify what you're
referring to. We had met before. And the idea of this was
that you were going to teach me math or some
mathematical principles. I was going to memorize those
formulas or principles and then I was going to demonstrate
how I did it. And we sort of struggled for about an hour I
think. In terms of me thinking, first of all, what are we going
to use as an example. Me, not being a mathematician, not
having any applicable interest in math as such. I mean we
talked about conversion rates and things that have to do
with websites and so forth being interesting to me and also
I'm just interested in math as a concept, but in terms of the
sorts of things that you're presenting now with confidence
intervals, this is just ... What can I possibly bring from myself
when there's nothing at stake? There's nothing of interest
and so forth. So what we ultimately ended up deciding was
why don't you learn my method and then you apply it to
something that has consequence for you and something that
you're clearly passionate about and deeply invested in and
interested in?
And I think that really raises a point and I wouldn't want to
turn anybody away from any topic at all in education. But I
think that it does raise the point that a lot of people are into
a subject area because they have an end goal that they
aren't really in love with because they have a myth about
getting a job on the other side.
So one of the things that might prevent people from having
success with mnemonics or memory techniques or Memory
Palaces is simply that they're not in love with what they're
trying to memorize. They're doing it for some reason that is
not authentic. It's not real. It's not love and so that may be
the true barrier here because it is going to take an extra
investment. Not much. 45 minutes for nine formulas is
nothing, you know? It's really, at the end of the day, in
comparison with what you can do with that, it may be and it
has to be said, that at some level the barrier can be that
there's not enough true, authentic interest in the topic in the
first place in order to warrant just any kind of learning really.
So that may – I just wanted to throw that out there.
Robert: I see it every day. You hit it on the head there.
Absolutely. And you know what's interesting is that you
might be able to sell, as you were saying earlier today, you
might be able to sell the topic through these mnemonics as
well. And I'm going to conclude my process of Memory
Palaces and this learning technique with you with evidence
that I have actually done this subconsciously without even
knowing it and it has to do with the quadratic formula. Okay?
So look, as someone who's not in an algebra class right now
yourself. You have a respect for math as a concept, but
there's not need for you to walk around and memorize the
quadratic formula. So I get that. So when I try to teach that
formula to my students, it's just a bunch of gibberish to
them, especially at first. But I came up with the mnemonic
that they love and I'm going to share it with you and I've
been doing this for years, well before you and I had met. I've
been doing this for years and I'm going to share it with you.
It may help to have the formula in front of you. Could you
maybe write it? I could recite it to you and then you'll look at
it with me.
Anthony: Okay. I'm just getting a pen and paper here. My
fancy new Collins pen.
Robert: Fancy. Okay. So that's the quadratic formula. Okay?
So here's the mnemonic that I did. I would write it on the
board so I would say class, here's the story about the
negative boy who couldn't decide yes or no, to go to a
radical party. But the boy was a square and he missed out on
(-) 4 awesome chicks. And the party was all over at 2 a.m.
they love it. They love it. They come in the next day talking
about it. It just gave it a narrative. The story of the negative
boy who missed out on four awesome chicks. They love that
stuff. And it's just interesting that we found our way together
and I had been doing it without even realizing it.
Anthony: Well my immediate instinct would be and I think it
would help people who struggle even with that and I think it
would benefit people who don't struggle with that, using a
narrative like that is to locate that some place to actually see
that in a particular place. So if I was going to work on that, I
would see it either where I'm in the room now or I'd pick a
specific Memory Palace and locate it somewhere so that I
have a place to go when I'm looking for it and then I would
want to actually see that and make sure I spend some time
exaggerating the imagery and bringing color and action to it.
So that would just be my response to that to add more from
the kinds of techniques that I put into things.
Is there anything else that we haven't covered that you think
should be mentioned?
Robert: I've talked about everything that I wanted to
process. You've given me a lot to think about. Is there
anything else you wanted to figure out or inquire from me?
Do you need anything else from me? Or however else I can
help you with this? This has been great.
Anthony: My only thing is I hope it continues so we can help
more people actually adopt these techniques and at the very
least do things with the sort of formula that you just shared
with the negative boy and maybe experiment with people
who struggle with even that and see about adding a Memory
Palace component to it to give it for what might for some
people give it an extra oomph so to speak, or also as a kind
of gateway drug, so to speak, to more mnemonics when they
see that sort of power coming together.
Robert: Absolutely. Giving it a shell, giving it a framework as
opposed to just a simple cutie narrative because that's what
I've done up until now. They can envision themselves at the
party. They can see who's there. They can ask why or who
the four awesome chicks were. All those sort of add-ons to
help the image come to life. Anthony, this has been really,
really special for me. I think this is a huge opportunity for me
to be able to share this conversation with you and I think
you're doing really great work and I hope that whoever is
watching this and your students understand that it's from
someone that works in academics that used this method for
the first time today and learned about it only a few days ago,
it's really special and you're really on to something and I'm
just really happy to be a part of it. So thanks for this
opportunity.
Anthony: And thank you for bringing your expertise to the
practice.
Robert: You got it.
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