“Never memorize something you can look up” – Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein said it best. First off, our brain isn’t a hard drive for memory storage like a hard drive. It’s not a chest that we can store antiques in to take out in the future. Memory works with reoccurring thoughts and patterns first, useless crap later. In fact, useless crap like memorizing the capital city of every country in the world or knowing the scientific name of every reptile will cease to exist. Yeah, you’ll forget it really quickly.
The more often you use a skill or information, the more you memorize it. Memorizing something for the sake of memorizing it is either useless or very ineffective.
For example; a shopping list is very simple, but there’s no reason to not have one before going food shopping. There’s literally no point in trying to memorize everything you need to get. You just run the risk of forgetting something that way.
How many of you still remember the quadratic formula or long division from math class? How about imaginary numbers? Unfortunately, advanced math has little use outside of school so we easily forget these formula’s.
The great thing is, there’s no reason to remember them. Unlike school. which considers it cheating, you can look up the formula if you need it.
All of the details that most of us memorize in medical school – you don’t have to learn those things. They’re going to be in your computer.
Leroy Hood
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