Page 144 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

To begin tapping into your visual memory system, try
making a very memorable visual image representing
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one key item you want to remember. For example, here
is a picture you could use to remember Newton’s
second law: f = ma. (This is a fundamental relationship
relating force to mass and acceleration that only took
humans a couple hundred thousand years to figure out.)

The letter f in the formula could stand for flying, m for
mule, and a, well, that’s up to you.
Part of the reason an image is so important to memory is that images connect
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directly to your right brain’s visuospatial centers. The image helps you
encapsulate a seemingly humdrum and hard-to-remember concept by tapping
into visual areas with enhanced memory abilities.

A creative memory device—the months with the projecting knuckles on hands have thirty-one
days. As one college calculus student noted: “Oddly enough, with that simple memory tool I doubt
I will ever forget which months have thirty-one days—which amazes me. Ten seconds to learn
something I’ve just avoided learning for twenty years because I thought it would be too tedious to