Check out a related blog by Josh Cohen at http://Mnemotechnics.org.
See also the Wikipedia references for the Mnemonic Major System and the Method of Loci.
The program 2Know (free download) was used to generate a long list of candidate objects for each number pair. See more notes below. The 100 images for this library can be viewed individually from the tables below or they can be played in a slideshow sequence with captions at Picasaweb (hint: press F11 for full screen view).
Photo
Credits:
Images for each Person are linked in the
Person columns below. The Internet source for these images is
linked in the ## column. Last updated: 02/03/2012, Willis Jarvis jwleaf.org
02/03/12: Changed #14 Fertilize to Plant
11/21/11: Changed #24 Barbeque to Barbecue, #81 Walk over to Walk on, #86 Hook to Surf)
Same data one image per row:
linked in the ## column. Last updated: 02/03/2012, Willis Jarvis jwleaf.org
02/03/12: Changed #14 Fertilize to Plant
11/21/11: Changed #24 Barbeque to Barbecue, #81 Walk over to Walk on, #86 Hook to Surf)
| ## Person - Action - Object | ## Person - Action - Object |
| 0 The Snow Queen Freeze ice 1 Huck Finn Stub toe 2 Godson Juan Antonio Splash honey 3 Hansel & Gretel Taste home 4 Siddhartha Pull out arrow 5 The Buddha Illuminate halo 6 Bodhidharma Gaze shoe 7 Houdini Hide key 8 Jack Beanstalk Climb ivy 9 Judy Garland Sing rainbow 10 Samurai Shake dice 11 Queequeg Hurl tattoo 12 Francis Assisi Pet twine 13 Little Jack Horner Insert thumb 14 Johnny Appleseed Plant tree 15 Talu Gibbon Tease tail 16 Jim Empire Sun Hide ditch 17 Thoreau Back off duck 18 Mandelbrot Zoom in tofu 19 Geronimo Point tepee 20 Brachiosaurus Sneeze nose 21 The Nutcracker Crack nut 22 Job Weep onion 23 Dory Swim Nemo 24 Hamlet Barbecue wiener 25 Noah Hammer nail 26 Seaman Dana Hoist wench 27 E.T. Stretch neck 28 Edwin Hubble Expand nova 29 Derren Brown Twist knob 30 Jean Baptiste Flip moose 31 Thor Heyerdahl Float moat 32 Galileo Squint moon 33 King Tut Wrap mummy 34 Gollum Bite moray 35 Bhaddali Swallow mule 36 Little Match Girl Scratch match 37 Robinson Crusoe Shade/Cover macaw 38 Kitchen Stories Drink movie 39 Oscar Pistorius Bounce amoeba 40 Mahatma Gandhi Spin rice 41 Linnaeus Varnish root 42 Tarzan Swing rhino 43 Brother Paul Kneel room 44 Masai Jump warrior 45 John Henry Explode railway 46 Tarahumara Jog huarache 47 Abraham Lincoln Cement rock 48 Milarepa Listen roof 49 Statue of Liberty Fold robe | 50 The Lone Ranger Corral lasso 51 Marie Curie Photograph light 52 Ashoka Roll lion 53 Mary Schoolgirl Follow lamb 54 Segovia Strum lyre 55 Euclid Flatten lily 56 Stand by Me Peel leech 57 Neanderthal Wrestle lake 58 Robert Frost Subside leaf 59 Godson Daniel Dance lip 60 Magnus Carlsen Play chess 61 Achilles Sprint cheetah 62 Jacob Marley Drag chain 63 Tinker Bell Scatter chime 64 Miss Muffet Sit chair 65 Venus Stand on shell 66 Alan Turing Count hashish 67 Bill Gates Autograph check 68 Tolstoy Cut sheaf 69 Ulysses Sail ship 70 Aesop Squeeze goose 71 Benjamin Franklin Fly kite 72 Lewis & Clark Paddle canoe 73 Swami Sivananda Toss comb 74 Audubon Sketch crow 75 Paul Revere Blow quail 76 Suchi Curl cashew 77 Heifetz Fiddle cuckoo 78 Sleeping Beauty Wake up coffee 79 Picasso Color cube 80 Ramana Maharshi Go around face 81 John Muir Walk on foot 82 Stevie Wonder Call phone 83 Godson Fabian Laugh foam 84 STS-125 Atlantis Burn fire 85 Thomas Edison Sharpen file 86 The Old Man & Sea Surf fish 87 Carl Sandburg Tiptoe fog 88 Yankee Doodle March fife 89 Walkabout Clip on fob 90 The Carpenters Ride bus 91 Peer Gynt Lie on bed 92 Charles Darwin Dig up bone 93 Samuel Coleridge Dream opium 94 Godson Jesus Polish boar 95 Newton Push apple 96 Craig Venter Clone peach 97 Gandalf Stop book 98 Ferdinand Smell beef 99 White Fang Howl puppy |
Same data one image per row:
| ## | Person | Action (rationale) | Object | ## |
| 0 | The Snow Queen | Freeze (Kay kidnapped to the Queen's Ice Palace) | ice | 0 |
| 1 | Huck Finn | Stub (bare toe) | toe | 1 |
| 2 | Godson Juan Antonio | Splash (favorite swimming hole El Pozo Bonito) | honey | 2 |
| 3 | Hansel & Gretel | Taste (gingerbread house) | home | 3 |
| 4 | Siddhartha | Pull out (arrow from swan shot by Devadatta) | arrow | 4 |
| 5 | The Buddha | Illuminate | halo | 5 |
| 6 | Bodhidharma | Gaze (at wall 9 years. Carried one shoe while walking home) | shoe | 6 |
| 7 | Houdini | Hide | key | 7 |
| 8 | Jack Beanstalk | Climb | ivy | 8 |
| 9 | Judy Garland | Sing | rainbow | 9 |
| 10 | The Seventh Samurai | Shake | dice | 10 |
| 11 | Queequeg | Hurl (harpoon from Moby Dick Pequod) |
tattoo | 11 |
| 12 |
Francis Assisi |
Pet (wore rope belt, having compassion for animals) | twine | 12 |
| 13 | Little Jack Horner | Insert | thumb | 13 |
| 14 | Johnny Appleseed | Plant | tree | 14 |
| 15 | Talu Gibbon | Tickle | tail | 15 |
| 16 | Jim Empire of the Sun | Crawl (Jim taking cover) |
ditch | 16 |
| 17 | Thoreau | Back off (retreat to Waldon Pond) | duck | 17 |
| 18 | Mandelbrot | Zoom in (fractal landscape) | tofu | 18 |
| 19 | Geronimo | Point | tepee | 19 |
| 20 | Brachiosaurus | Sneeze (Jurassic Park scene) | nose | 20 |
| 21 | The Nutcracker | Crack | nut | 21 |
| 22 | Job | Weep | onion | 22 |
| 23 | Dory | Swim ("Just keep swimming ...") | Nemo | 23 |
| 24 | Hamlet | Barbecue ("Be", or Oscar Meyer "not to be...") | wiener | 24 |
| 25 | Noah | Hammer | nail | 25 |
| 26 | Seaman Dana | Hoist (while Two Years Before the Mast) | wench | 26 |
| 27 | E.T. | Stretch (telescoping neck) | neck | 27 |
| 28 | Edwin Hubble | Expand (universe) | nova | 28 |
| 29 | Derren Brown | Twist | knob | 29 |
| 30 | Jean Baptiste | Flip | moose | 30 |
| 31 | Thor Heyerdahl | Float | moat | 31 |
| 32 | Galileo | Squint (single eye telescope) | moon | 32 |
| 33 | King Tut | Wrap | mummy | 33 |
| 34 | Gollum | Bite | moray | 34 |
| 35 | Bhaddali | Swallow (stubbornly ignored rules about eating) | mule | 35 |
| 36 | Little Match Girl | Scratch | match | 36 |
| 37 | Crusoe | Shade or Cover (but not Hide #07) | macaw | 37 |
| 38 | Kitchen Stories | Drink (Isaac's birthday party) | movie | 38 |
| 39 | Oscar Pistorius | Bounce (legs on springy blades) | amoeba | 39 |
| 40 | Gandhi |
Spin (homespun khadi) |
rice | 40 |
| 41 | Linnaeus | Varnish | root | 41 |
| 42 | Tarzan | Swing | rhino | 42 |
| 43 | Brother Paul | Kneel | room | 43 |
| 44 | Masai Warrior | Jump | warrior | 44 |
| 45 | John Henry | Explode | rail | 45 |
| 46 | Tarahumara | Jog (Copper Canyons of Chihuahua) | huarache | 46 |
| 47 | Abraham Lincoln | Cement | rock | 47 |
| 48 | Milarepa | Listen (in Tibet, the roof of the world) | roof | 48 |
| 49 | Statue of Liberty | Fold | robe | 49 |
| 50 | The Lone Ranger | Corral | lasso | 50 |
| 51 | Marie Curie | Photograph | light | 51 |
| 52 | Ashoka | Roll (the wheel of dhamma) | lion | 52 |
| 53 | Mary Schoolgirl | Follow | lamb | 53 |
| 54 | Segovia | Strum | lyre | 54 |
| 55 | Euclid | Flatten (plane geometry) | lily | 55 |
| 56 | Stand by Me | Peel | leech | 56 |
| 57 | Neanderthal | Wrestle (in remote glacial cirques) | lake | 57 |
| 58 | Robert Frost | Subside (from poem nothing gold can stay) | leaf | 58 |
| 59 | Godson Daniel | Dance | lip | 59 |
| 60 | Magnus Carlsen | Play | chess | 60 |
| 61 | Achilles | Sprint | cheetah | 61 |
| 62 | Jacob Marley | Drag | chain | 62 |
| 63 | Tinker Bell | Scatter | chime | 63 |
| 64 | Miss Muffet | Sit on | chair | 64 |
| 65 | Botticelli Venus | Stand on | shell | 65 |
| 66 | Alan Turing | Count | hashish | 66 |
| 67 | Bill Gates | Autograph | check | 67 |
| 68 | Leo Tolstoy | Cut | sheaf | 68 |
| 69 | Ulysses | Sail | ship | 69 |
| 70 | Aesop | Squeeze (a golden egg) | goose | 70 |
| 71 | Ben Franklin | Fly | kite | 71 |
| 72 | Lewis & Clark | Paddle | canoe | 72 |
| 73 | Swami Sivananda | Toss (drop attachment like a comb out the window) | comb | 73 |
| 74 | Audubon | Sketch (with a black crow feather) | crow | 74 |
| 75 | Paul Revere | Blow (horn, the British are coming) | quail | 75 |
| 76 | Suchi | Curl (little dog curls up like a cashew) | cashew | 76 |
| 77 | Heifetz | Fiddle (cuckoo pops out and in like a violin bow) | cuckoo | 77 |
| 78 | Sleeping Beauty | Wake up (smell the coffee) | coffee | 78 |
| 79 | Picasso | Color (cubism) | cube | 79 |
| 80 | Ramana Maharshi | Go around (circumambulate Arunachala hill) | face | 80 |
| 81 | John Muir | Walk on (over or across the Sierra Nevada) | foot | 81 |
| 82 | Stevie Wonder | Call (to say I love you) | phone | 82 |
| 83 | Godson Fabian | Laugh | foam | 83 |
| 84 | STS-125 Atlantis | Burn | fire | 84 |
| 85 | Edison | Sharpen | file | 85 |
| 86 | Old Man & Sea | Surf | fish | 86 |
| 87 | Carl Sandburg | Tiptoe (fog comes on little cat feet) | fog | 87 |
| 88 | Yankee Doodle | March | fife | 88 |
| 89 | Walkabout | Clip on (waist trinkets) | fob | 89 |
| 90 | The Carpenters | Ride (Ticket to Ride) | bus | 90 |
| 91 | Peer Gynt | Lie on | bed | 91 |
| 92 | Charles Darwin | Dig up (ancient fossils) | bone | 92 |
| 93 | Coleridge | Dream | opium | 93 |
| 94 | Godson Jesus | Polish (a boar-tooth necklace) | boar | 94 |
| 95 | Newton | Push (force of gravitation accelerating apple) | apple | 95 |
| 96 | Craig Venter | Clone (fuzzy peach bloom of bearded face) | peach | 96 |
| 97 | Gandalf | Stop (the Balrog shall not pass) | book | 97 |
| 98 | Ferdinand Bull | Smell (flowers) | beef | 98 |
| 99 | White Fang | Howl | puppy | 99 |
Notes:
In PAO, all 100 pairs of digits from 00 to 99 are associated with a Person, an Action and an Object. For example, 11 might correspond to a tattooed Queequeg hurling a harpoon. The object part of the image (a Tattoo) does not necessarily have to be the object of the action (Hurl), but it helps if the image is related so that remembering any part of it will help recall the other parts. For example, while the word tattoo points directly to number 11 according to the Major System ("1" = "T or D"), Queequeg as a Person doing anything else, or any action involving Hurling something, also refer to number 11. Therefore each of 100 actions should be distinct enough not to overlap in meaning, but capable of acting upon many objects. The Objects should in general be distinct from Persons ("Nemo" for number 23 was an exception because few object words were found having only "n" followed by "m").
To use this PAO system and make it personally useful, first it is necessary to obtain or construct and then memorize a personal library consisting of 100 persons, 100 unique actions and 100 objects of action. One way is to begin with a list of Objects corresponding to the Mnemonic Major System rules (see below). Another way might be to start with a list of Persons. In my case I started with Objects. For example, "onion" is an object which corresponds to number 22 because it contains two "n" consonants (vowels do not count). Then a Person and Action suggested by this object was chosen, in this case Job weeping over an onion. After selecting 100 objects, next I selected Persons and Actions suggested by them. I had to make a lot of revisions to get Actions which did not overlap each other but which were still general enough to apply to many objects. Consider the handful of actions involving water: 23-Dory-Swim-Nemo, 31-Thor Heyerdahl-Float-moat, 69-Ulysses-Sail-ship, 72-Lewis & Clark-Paddle-canoe, 86-Old Man & the Sea-Row-fish. These Actions are distinct enough not to be confused: Swim, Float, Sail, Paddle and Row. I had to replace a preliminary image of Aguirre, Wrath of God, drifting down the Amazon with a different image of Lewis & Clark, because Aguirre's raft was too similar to the Kon-Tiki raft even without Kon-Tiki's sail, and moreover Lewis and Clark used canoes, not rafts. I also wanted to avoid unpleasant persons. Most of my Persons were chosen for attractive or admirable qualities to invite them to reside in my memory palaces. I avoid violent actions and all sexual actions even at the cost of some mnemonic emphasis.
In theory, any sequence of six digits can be converted into a single composite image by combining the Person for the first pair, the Action for the second pair and the Object for the third pair. The vast number of possible combinations (100 * 100 * 100 = one million) produces memorable composites. Each composite image is deposited along a path threading a memory palace (Method of Loci). This in turn requires developing personal familiarity with a memory palace such as a set of rooms in one's home or a set of landmarks in the local neighborhood. Memory retrieval is accomplished by retracing the path taken in the mental palace, recalling the image of the composites deposited at each location and converting them back to their corresponding numbers.
For the problem of odd-length numbers which do not break up nicely into pairs of digits, they can be considered as being composed of overlapping pairs, for example 123 = 12 + 23. In my experience, after having perfected a good set of Actions which took a number of months, combinations involving of Action + Object yield more memorable images than Person + Object. When only an Action and an Object are involved, sometimes it is convenient to replace the Action with an Adjective, since there is no confusion about the ordering of the numbers if the Object is always the last number pair. As an example of Adjectives or Past Participle functionally equivalent to Actions, consider these three-digit numbers, treated as overlapping pairs: 023 = 02 + 23 = splash + Nemo = "splashing Nemo". 598 = 59 + 98 = Dance + Beef = "dancing bull". 835 = 83 + 35 = Laugh + Mule = "laughing mule". 942 = 94 + 42 = Polish + Rhino = "polished rhino".
As of 11/2011, I am practicing on translating six-digit numbers to composite images. The development of the memory palace assignments is postponed for later. I recommend the site http://www.random.org/integers/ to get a page of integers. Select 400 integers, 10 columns, to get vertical lists of 40 integers each column. When the paper is folded in half, this gives a working set of 20 numbers to practice with. Then the creatitve challenge is to make the combination of Person-Action-Object somehow relevant to the Person, knowing something about the Person's character. For example, consider the number 511740 (Madame Curie - Back off - Rice). Knowing that Madame Curie was French reminded me of Marie Antoinette who supposedly said of the peasants "Let them eat cake" if they could not get bread. So I imagine Madame Curie backing away from eating common white rice because she may have had a delicate stomach as a result of radioactivity in her lab. Practicing like this, imagining scenes which do not exist in reality but which relate somehow to my store of knowledge of the world, may have a beneficial effect of exercising an aging mind.
Little flash cards cut in quarters from 3X5 index cards can help to memorize these lists of 100 items. The more sophisticated electronic flashcards by Anki (free download) are also useful and may include images as part of the answer. I found it useful to create three separate lists for Persons-number, Actions-number, and Objects-number, rather than to combine all three aspects for a given number.
# Phonetic Table of the Mnemonic Major System, with optional colors
0 S s sibilant as in "z"ero Black
1 T, Th or D t or d = single stroke like 1 Red
2 N n = 2 vertical strokes Orange
3 M m = 3 vertical strokes Yellow
4 R fou"r" Brown, Beige, Magenta
5 L L = Roman 50 Silver *
6 J, Sh or Ch j =lower loop like 6 Gold *
7 K, hard C or G K contains two 7's sideways Green
8 F or V f = two loops like 8 Blue
9 P or B P = mirror image of 9 White
*The Magpie Song: "One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy,
five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that must never be told."