Friday, November 19, 2010

Mnemonics and Pluto

I was thinking the other day.

Everything I remember from science classes is because of mnemonic devices. Unfortunately there is no mnemonic for remembering how to spell mnemonic. Until I googled it, my initial impulse was to spell it with a p as the first letter.

Anyways, most of what I remember from science classes is because of a mnemonic.

The spectrum of visible light: ROY G. BIV for Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo, and Violet.

Taxonomic classification order: Kings Play Cards On Fat Green Stools for Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.

The Nine planets of our home solar system: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pumpkins for Mercury, Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, and Pluto.

Unfortunately Pluto no longer counts as a full-fledged planet, but has been demoted to minor planet. This rather spoils the mnemonic. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine is a sentence fragment.

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