Almost all the posts on here since October have focused on mathematics. Perhaps it's time to get back to memory work.

Let's wade back into memory work with some mnemonics.

I've certainly talked enough about memorizing Pi, but what about memorizing the constant e? Robert Talbert teaches a different mnemonic approach that helps you memorize e simply by looking at a US$20 bill! Since I believe that memorization and understanding go hand-in-hand, understanding the nature of e is a big help. Also, knowing your US presidents will help here, strangely.

Speaking of memorizing USA facts, The Tutor Whisperer has some great and original mnemonics for learning the US states and their locations. The example only teaches from the Pacific coast states to the midwest states, but it wouldn't be hard to create similar mnemonics for the rest of the states.

Perhaps you only need to memorize the original 13 colonies? Then perhaps Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and Pluto can help! No, you don't need to read your horoscope, just use this stately astro-mnemonic. This mnemonic will probably take more work than the others in this post, but it sure is handy!

As long as we're talking about outer space now, how do you go about remembering something like the speed of light? In miles per second, 186,000 isn't tough to remember, but what about in meters per second? Can we guarantee certainty, clearly referring to this light mnemonic? Not only can we, you just learned it without knowing that you did!

Ready-made mnemonics are great, but what about when there are no ready-made mnemonics for what you're studying? One solution for creating custom mnemonics I've mentioned before is JogLab. They've just made their site even more useful with a special introductory video about creating acrostic poems (It employs annotation links, so I'm not embedding it here).

Finally, those who use the Number Shape system of memory will find the following video handy. I've seen several variations of images for use with this system, but this video teaches the most distinct and easily-remembered images I've ever run across: