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This always surprises me every damn time. How can so many go to school for 12+ years and then forget almost everything they learned?
Like if you ask a highschooler something they might answer "I don't know, I had that class last year so I forgot"
I really wonder, what do people think was the purpose of going to school for twelve years when it is all wasted due to people refusing to remember? School is not about passing tests, it is about getting educated so that you got a firm base to stand on later in life.
How to you combat this bad habit plaguing most of the world? It is easy to say that those persons are just stupid and shouldn't had received the education in the first place but is that really a good solution?
And even in college and higher education steps are people more interesting in getting good grades than actually learning anything and most would not get passed if they retook the tests some year later if they did not get to prepare days before.
 
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Maybe because like 50% of what you learn is useless or boring ?
Oh and because people are obviously dumb compared to you.
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Yeah its because you don't really use it.
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unless you use it very often, you probably won't remember it, especially if you had no interest in it in the first place.
education is still important, though. it helps teens use their brains and challenges them to think differently. of course some of the things taught in school are "useless" and will never be applied to real life in regular situations, like calculus. But if they were to learn the same concepts even as high schoolers, such as arithmetic, they'd never get challenged. By introducing new stuff like physics and stuff, they can go a step further, building on the stuff they knew. And maybe this stuff might interest them and they can pursue further studies in college.
and even for people who major in something they like will encounter courses which they dont like.
also some people go to college because their parents made them do so.
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I think most people never learn to begin with. School systems are so wretched these days that they don't manage to teach anything. The testing is designed to allow as many people as possible to get an acceptable score, so they focus on heaps of non-learning methods of education which will allow the kids to tick the right boxes or go through some fixed process to achieve an answer. I blame socialised education.
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I find that it's usually a matter of how something is taught.
Awful/boring teaching habits = uninteresting subject = unmotivated students = easily forgettable.
On to your point about grades, here's what I think:
While students may "know" that learning in it of itself is important, at the end of the day, getting the grade is perceived to be the ultimate goal (at least in the US imo). You can also insert something about cultural values here.
Anyway, if the perception of learning/university, is predominantly, to pass an exam or graduate with a degree, students will naturally cut corners. Shit, I do it all the time.
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I'm probably one of those.
The system right now is so easy to cheat, at least for those who can pick up things quickly. I studied for all my tests 2 days or 1 day before the actual test in high school, and I basically got the highest grade in all of them. And still, I'd have to really try hard to remember most of the stuff I got really high grades in.
I know it's fundamentally wrong, but the way I see it, some of the stuff was fucking useless anyways. I've still got pretty good knowledge about the things I'm actually interested in, and that'll be enough for the college studies im going to take.
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Its because you think its boring, useless or whatever, i bet you can remember almost everything about that videogame you played when you were supposed to be doing your homework.
And school is about passing exams, its about numbers. Its a business.
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School teaches you how to learn, not what to learn. For the overwhelmingly vast majority of people, finding x isn't important, nor is knowing which king of France was beheaded during the Revolution. It's important to know how to solve problems given incomplete information (math), or recall details which actually are important given too much information (history), etc.
That, and in my humble experience most people are just fucking morons.
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^ Pretty much sums up my opinions as well. The point of school is to learn how to learn. Being able to learn things quickly and on your own is what's important. These days having the technical skills of your profession is a given. You need to have other skills and the ability to adapt (by learning quickly).
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This is a sort of means-end inversion. (something I learned last year!) Let's assume students go to school to "learn." However, their passing (and consequently finishing school) is determined by graded examinations. This means becomes an end for the students and they now strive towards good grades as opposed to learning the field they enjoy so they can apply it later.
Importance has shifted from learning to grades because measurement of goal accomplishment is based on grades instead of learning. Of course measuring learning is probably a little more difficult to do (this is probably why the education system is how it is with respect to this issue).
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In school you can also learn how to do critical/abstract thinking. This is particularly true in college. Being educated has more to do with your ability to think analytically and your ability to find information than the facts that your remember.
Also, having learned something once, if you need to learn it again, it comes back super fast.
But ya, forgetting stuff is annoying. I wish a had a photographic memory.
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because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
that's why autism is a disability and not a fortune
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On January 17 2009 00:47 Klockan3 wrote:
And even in college and higher education steps are people more interesting in getting good grades than actually learning anything and most would not get passed if they retook the tests some year later if they did not get to prepare days before.
It depends what you mean by "learning". What you're describing here is just someone's inability to memorise a large amount of information for a long time. But surely, if they could do the test given time to prepare, haven't they therefore "learnt" how to study something?
But if you mean something like maths, where some people just memorise techniques to solve particular exam problems and don't actually "understand" it. Then that's just them not learning properly in the first place, rather than forgetting what they've learnt.
In the end the important part of learning isn't simply what you know, but how you would go about knowing more things.
I think passby20 said it pretty well.
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There should be more focus on understanding the process, on how things connect whit each other, and less on data. Some random information is useless, and much easier to forget then data that is part of some logic.
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On January 17 2009 00:47 Klockan3 wrote:This always surprises me every damn time. How can so many go to school for 12+ years and then forget almost everything they learned? Like if you ask a highschooler something they might answer "I don't know, I had that class last year so I forgot" I really wonder, what do people think was the purpose of going to school for twelve years when it is all wasted due to people refusing to remember? School is not about passing tests, it is about getting educated so that you got a firm base to stand on later in life. How to you combat this bad habit plaguing most of the world? It is easy to say that those persons are just stupid and shouldn't had received the education in the first place but is that really a good solution? And even in college and higher education steps are people more interesting in getting good grades than actually learning anything and most would not get passed if they retook the tests some year later if they did not get to prepare days before.
So im guessing you are some kind of genius who remembers every little detail you have ever learned? ;p
But really, people will remember the things most important/interesting to them, its impossible to remember everything.
And you say school isnt about passing tests but rather getting educated. I wish this was true but the way schools grade based almost purely on test results I'd say it is about passing tests. Tests arn't always the best way to judge an understanding of the material ethier. At least its like this in highschool moreso than college because the classes don't really matter that much. In college obviously people are going to be more focused on learning their major.
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On January 17 2009 02:50 Pengu1n wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 00:47 Klockan3 wrote:This always surprises me every damn time. How can so many go to school for 12+ years and then forget almost everything they learned? Like if you ask a highschooler something they might answer "I don't know, I had that class last year so I forgot" I really wonder, what do people think was the purpose of going to school for twelve years when it is all wasted due to people refusing to remember? School is not about passing tests, it is about getting educated so that you got a firm base to stand on later in life. How to you combat this bad habit plaguing most of the world? It is easy to say that those persons are just stupid and shouldn't had received the education in the first place but is that really a good solution? And even in college and higher education steps are people more interesting in getting good grades than actually learning anything and most would not get passed if they retook the tests some year later if they did not get to prepare days before. So im guessing you are some kind of genius who remembers every little detail you have ever learned? ;p
Almost, stuff I heard on discovery 10 years ago helps me pass exams sometimes or things I learned in elementary which I haven't used since comes back when I need it, usually with the context i heard it in and who said it etc.
I believe that others could do the same thing, just that they are going about things in the wrong way. Edit: But of course the things that I never learnt is impossible to recall, like the kings of sweden or such, I would not have been able to answer such questions even if they asked right at the lesson about it since I do not care at all about it. That is what not caring about something is to me, then I just do not learn it at all in the first place but the things that I do learn sticks.
On January 17 2009 02:08 Ghardo wrote:
because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
Probably, but when people who really want to learn the subjects since they will need them later and they know that they will need it why do they forget? Do they just not want to learn it enough? Or is the want imaginary and they really is indifferent about it?
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
b/c they usually memorize into short term memory.
Even if they "forget", they'll pick it up 10x faster than the guy who hasnt covered it in the past, so all is not lost.
+ Show Spoiler +No, i definitely don't remember how to do circuit analysis anymore lol
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This topic revolves around psychology. I read this a while back that our brain only seems to want to remember things that interest us or involves wanting to learn more about the subject. For example(just for myself) if we used Starcraft and C&C: Red Alert. Even thou they are categorized in the same genre I only played C&C a few times and wouldn't have no interest in having a good conversation over it. Unlike if we spoke about SC I can probably name more then 80% of the units and mechanics. My brain has more interest in SC then C&C but thats meh.
So yea this topic involves alot of psychology which I don't have any expertise in.
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On January 17 2009 03:35 thedeadhaji wrote:
b/c they usually memorize into short term memory.
I really wonder how the memory works.
There are so few studies on long term memory and all of these memory tricks just helps the short term. I have a hypothesis that the short term memory is mutually exclusive to the long term memory, I have a quite bad short term memory but my long term memory is good.
Its like, if you learned something using your short term memory it is very hard to get it in your long term, the best way is to learn it long term from the start.
On January 17 2009 03:41 Kennelie wrote:
This topic revolves around psychology. I read this a while back that our brain only seems to want to remember things that interest us or involves wanting to learn more about the subject. For example(just for myself) if we used Starcraft and C&C: Red Alert. Even thou they are categorized in the same genre I only played C&C a few times and wouldn't have no interest in having a good conversation over it. Unlike if we spoke about SC I can probably name more then 80% of the units and mechanics. My brain has more interest in SC then C&C but thats meh.
So yea this topic involves alot of psychology which I don't have any expertise in.
But I remember a lot of shit which I was completely uninterested in.
Kinda like in elementary one of our teachers corrected us when we said "The moon circles around the earth" which he harshly refuted with "No, the moon and the earth circulates around their combined center of mass, I get tired of all these "The earth circulates around the sun" blabla", which I did not understand at all what it meant then but when I was in college and we were doing mechanics of astral bodies I recollected it and could therefore answer a question made by the professor nearly instantly.
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On January 17 2009 03:25 Klockan3 wrote:Almost, stuff I heard on discovery 10 years ago helps me pass exams sometimes Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 02:08 Ghardo wrote:
because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
Probably, but when people who really want to learn the subjects since they will need them later and they know that they will need it why do they forget? Do they just not want to learn it enough? Or is the want imaginary and they really is indifferent about it?
On January 17 2009 03:42 Klockan3 wrote:
But I remember a lot of shit which I was completely uninterested in.
your longterm memory is just naturally very good - why is that so hard to understand?
you cite that there are people wo really want to learn stuff but can't remember later though you remember things from 10 years ago which you just consumed by the way... what does that tell you?
there are people who can run faster than others and there are people who can take the n-th root of 28937298739827398273892 in their heads while others can not. people are different. and our brains are not equally powerful.
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You realise the point of pretty much everything in highschool, and anything after that you wont use, isn't about what you learn, but how ( and the fact that) you learn it, right?
They're teaching you structure, and how to be a hard worker for a future jobs where that kind of dedication matters.
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On January 17 2009 04:07 Ghardo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 03:25 Klockan3 wrote:Almost, stuff I heard on discovery 10 years ago helps me pass exams sometimes On January 17 2009 02:08 Ghardo wrote:
because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
Probably, but when people who really want to learn the subjects since they will need them later and they know that they will need it why do they forget? Do they just not want to learn it enough? Or is the want imaginary and they really is indifferent about it? Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 03:42 Klockan3 wrote:
But I remember a lot of shit which I was completely uninterested in. your longterm memory is just naturally very good - why is that so hard to understand? you cite that there are people wo really want to learn stuff but can't remember later though you remember things from 10 years ago which you just consumed by the way... what does that tell you? there are people who can run faster than others and there are people who can take the n-th root of 28937298739827398273892 in their heads while others can not. people are different. and our brains are not equally powerful.
But for me that is hard to understand. I just believe that people go in on education and learning in general in completely wrong ways, kinda like how physicists tried to find the aether for a century before Einstein came and set things straight.
On January 17 2009 04:15 Divinek wrote:
You realise the point of pretty much everything in highschool, and anything after that you wont use, isn't about what you learn, but how ( and the fact that) you learn it, right?
They're teaching you structure, and how to be a hard worker for a future jobs where that kind of dedication matters.
I more see it as some machine and people noticed that if they threw in babies on one end some of them came out as well educated people so they started throwing everything they had into it and then hoping that everything turns out well.
Edit: I hate how the only questions I am interested in asking are questions none have answers for  Sucks to remember, then life stops being interesting.
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On January 17 2009 04:16 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 04:07 Ghardo wrote:On January 17 2009 03:25 Klockan3 wrote:Almost, stuff I heard on discovery 10 years ago helps me pass exams sometimes On January 17 2009 02:08 Ghardo wrote:
because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
Probably, but when people who really want to learn the subjects since they will need them later and they know that they will need it why do they forget? Do they just not want to learn it enough? Or is the want imaginary and they really is indifferent about it? On January 17 2009 03:42 Klockan3 wrote:
But I remember a lot of shit which I was completely uninterested in. your longterm memory is just naturally very good - why is that so hard to understand? you cite that there are people wo really want to learn stuff but can't remember later though you remember things from 10 years ago which you just consumed by the way... what does that tell you? there are people who can run faster than others and there are people who can take the n-th root of 28937298739827398273892 in their heads while others can not. people are different. and our brains are not equally powerful. But for me that is hard to understand. I just believe that people go in on education and learning in general in completely wrong ways, kinda like how physicists tried to find the aether for a century before Einstein came and set things straight.
that's definitely true but it's not the MAIN reason. you watched some tv show 10 years ago without a certain "learn-methodical-approach" and still remember stuff other people have long forgotten. so it comes down to "natural talent".
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People just stop actively "learning" after school, they assosiate learning with bad things so they stop, and so their mental ability decreases, which affects their memory; much more their entire mind.
Memory decreases in anything without review, its good to reread a class note for instance soon after you took it, then reread it again a week later or so which further enforces it. Doing it in that way been scientifically proven to retain memory better, it's actually a good thing, if we remembered everything we learned our minds would be chaotic and remember things that are trivial and uninportant. sure you gotta work at something to remember it, but you need to tell that to your brain somehow.
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On January 17 2009 04:29 Ghardo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 04:16 Klockan3 wrote:On January 17 2009 04:07 Ghardo wrote:On January 17 2009 03:25 Klockan3 wrote:Almost, stuff I heard on discovery 10 years ago helps me pass exams sometimes On January 17 2009 02:08 Ghardo wrote:
because you, respectively your brain filters information and if you, respectively your brain decides these information are useless/unimportant/boring they are being deleted.
Probably, but when people who really want to learn the subjects since they will need them later and they know that they will need it why do they forget? Do they just not want to learn it enough? Or is the want imaginary and they really is indifferent about it? On January 17 2009 03:42 Klockan3 wrote:
But I remember a lot of shit which I was completely uninterested in. your longterm memory is just naturally very good - why is that so hard to understand? you cite that there are people wo really want to learn stuff but can't remember later though you remember things from 10 years ago which you just consumed by the way... what does that tell you? there are people who can run faster than others and there are people who can take the n-th root of 28937298739827398273892 in their heads while others can not. people are different. and our brains are not equally powerful. But for me that is hard to understand. I just believe that people go in on education and learning in general in completely wrong ways, kinda like how physicists tried to find the aether for a century before Einstein came and set things straight. that's definitely true but it's not the MAIN reason. you watched some tv show 10 years ago without a certain "learn-methodical-approach" and still remember stuff other people have long forgotten. so it comes down to "natural talent".
But for me that is nothing special, I just assume that everyone else do the same things daily. You know, it is impossible to gauge others long term memory, but in a it way dawns on me more and more how much other forgets and every time I realize a bit more I get all 
And I am always afraid that I think too highly of myself, like my memory is not really perfect since sometimes it takes a bit of time to recall things and I do never got perfect clarity so maybe I am just thinking that I remember most things since I have forgotten everything I do not remember and as such I get a skewed interpretation on my memory capabilities.
But there are the small things that makes me doubt that its that easy, like I made some test at a psychiatrist a few years ago where I was supposed to watch a figure of various geometric shapes put together and then I was supposed to redraw it instantly after it was shown to me and then also 10 minutes after. The thing is that I still remember most of it, and it was just arbitrary shapes put together, nothing to really relate anything.
But then I think that I cheated, I thought at the time "It would be cool to remember this shape for our next meeting" which means that I did put emotions and a reason to remember it, meaning that it was not just a random thing.
On January 17 2009 04:45 D4EMON wrote:
People just stop actively "learning" after school, they assosiate learning with bad things so they stop, and so their mental ability decreases, which affects their memory; much more their entire mind.
Memory decreases in anything without review, its good to reread a class note for instance soon after you took it, then reread it again a week later or so which further enforces it. Doing it in that way been scientifically proven to retain memory better, it's actually a good thing, if we remembered everything we learned our minds would be chaotic and remember things that are trivial and uninportant. sure you gotta work at something to remember it, but you need to tell that to your brain somehow.
But don't you believe that there are faster ways to put things into your long term memory? Why would there be need for "working it in"?
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I have thought about this long and hard (that's what she said), and the conclusion I came to was:
The methods of teaching and learning are aimed towards having students do well on tests, not aimed towards them "being educated." Therefore, once the tests are over, students forget what they have learned because it is no longer important.
edit: grammar
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School makes things less interesting and encourages mundane learning off. It also reduces your concentration levels, although that might be due to me generally paying attention in class a lot so I have to do very minimal work for good grades.
To best way to do science or maths is to practice past questions, because there is the same old shit (which you learn by writing it out again and again in various different Q's) but they generally put in some things that are abstract and require thought to filter through the 'A students'. Though from what I see there isn't any set in stone exams in some countries except like the SAT, but that not like phys/chem or anything.
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Wanna know do the 100000000 studies on how long term memory is stored because it's known to be all over the brain but it's just confusing.
i think it's something like
When you get older your brain kinda hardens human brains tends to like to specialize so basically when you get older take up a job and get a routine your mind tries to optimize that and specialize into that area and the other info is porb still there just kinda lost.
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On January 17 2009 05:53 IzzyCraft wrote:
but it's just confusing.
I agree, which is why very little is known on the subject compared to short term. That is why it is so much more interesting to discuss long term.
Anyhow, since long term memory is triggered from emotions and such would it be possible to utilize drugs to increase long term memory?
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Memories are reinforced when you recall them. If you review something for a few minutes each day for a week, you'll remember it for a long time, whereas if you learn everything one day and only recall it the next day for a test, you'll have trouble remembering most of it after a few weeks. Wish I'd learned that in school. =/
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bc 1. its boring and 2. we learn new things.
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It changed completely for me when I started college I really like my classes and I remember most of it
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i always attributed this to being the difference between what i consider "remembering" and what i consider "learning". at some point i guess you could say that learning is just memory-based, but im pretty sure neurologically-wise, theres a difference between learning and simply remembering.
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Schools in the US teach to pass tests now. They suck.
When you're not doing that, you're getting your brain filled with useless bullshit.
Anything that is useful, it's the old, 'you don't use it, you lose it' thing. Think languages—I took Italian 3 years in HS and a semester in college, and I outside of telling someone to go fuck themselves, I really don't remember much.
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There's a reason people go to highschool[AKA general knowledge] and start specifying as they age. For example, calculus. Calculus has nothing to do with "traditional math," at least where I am from, but so many university courses require that you have it, thus you take it in highschool. From this you can say you're "specifying" or "differentiating" what you want to do in the future.
I don't see the issue with it. If its important, you'll remember it. If not, why should it matter?
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Well first of all, you say you learn at school. Not everyone does, and they could learn more efficiently from picking up books as long as they can set a steady pace for themselves and have the willpower not to slack off.
School is for shiny paper.
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On January 17 2009 06:04 SonuvBob wrote:
Memories are reinforced when you recall them. If you review something for a few minutes each day for a week, you'll remember it for a long time, whereas if you learn everything one day and only recall it the next day for a test, you'll have trouble remembering most of it after a few weeks. Wish I'd learned that in school. =/
I learned this in school :p
Anyways, there's a forgetting curve that you have to combat if you want to store things in your long term memory.
The forgetting curve by Ebbinhaus shows that you really don't remember most of what you learn.
So yeah, the best thing you can do is break up your studying and make multiple passes. And for god sakes, study something you are interested in.
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On January 17 2009 07:41 Athos wrote:
The forgetting curve by Ebbinhaus shows that you really don't remember most of what you learn.
Is that curve for real? Do you forget that much?
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To me it's just that shit I learned in High school was so useless. Like American History? English literature??....come on, lol.
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On January 17 2009 07:50 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 07:41 Athos wrote:
The forgetting curve by Ebbinhaus shows that you really don't remember most of what you learn.
Is that curve for real? Do you forget that much?
Yeah; only 20% will go to your permanent memory; the rest is all deleted.
Just try to image every meal you ate for the last 3 years 
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I asked if you forget that much, I know that I don't. And then I talk about things that are not just repetitions such as "what meal did you eat" but I mean out of new information that you during the time of learning it knows that it can have any sort of significance later. If you consider such information as meals, people you have seen etc then I am sure that most do not even remember a millionth of what happens because your brain do not even put it in the short term memory.
I will try to see how much I remember of the past weeks education:
Today we did quantum theory, if we go backwards we did:
Proved how the shrödinger equation works for electron orbitals.
Showed how to calculate on the photoelectic effect.
Showed how to calculate film interference.
Proved a formula between energy density in a black cavity and the emitted Em per area.
On complex analysis we did show how to utilize the change of arguments of polynomials over a closed curve to show how many solutions that polynomial have in the area enclosed by the curve. They showed both how to do it through maple and how to do it using pen and paper, I could explain but that would take over a page.
In the algebra course they just had a long winded explanation of how to construct permutations out of the act of turning objects around. Could also explain everything about that one but same as above.
Yesterday the last lesson we had was in numerical analysis about comsol, the last part of it was just a very quick version proving that comsol gives the best possible value for a finite element differential equation problem, nothing that we should know really and impossible for anyone to follow that quick reasoning. The first part was just an explanation of what comsol was.
The lesson before that was on general relativity theory, even if we haven't gotten that far yet in the course. In it they showed why all theories older than general relativity are flawed, explained the difference between general and special relativity and how it changes the view we have on the world.
The first lesson of yesterday was material science in which they explained how properties of matter is defined as the reactions of the matter when put under strain.
Two days ago the last lesson was physical math covering the course layout, showing the various differential equations we will go through in the course like Schrödinger or wave and how to solve PDE in general.
The lesson before I had a schedule interference, so I was at two, the last one of those was material science and they just explained the notion of strain and shear and how those properties work in beams. The other lesson was quantum in which they just derived the black body radiation law, at least during the hour I was there.
The first lesson this term was this wednesday was complex, nothing special just a brief overview on complex numbers and also showed how to define polarized coordinates through first creating a set of matrixes that behaves in exactly the same ways as complex numbers and show that they are rotational matrixes with the determinant equal to the absolute of the complex number, which directly gives us the polarized form of Z.
Wrote two exams in monday, the second was on theoretical electro dynamics. The first question was to show that the potential within a conducting sphere with the middle at point A inside any given electrical field is always equal to the potential at point A before you put the sphere at it.
The third question was to calculate the potential within a thick sphere that had a given charge density function, was something like 4a-3r where r goes from a to 2a.
The fifth question had a given ball with a magnetisation function and the question was to calculate the magnetic field at the middle of the ball.
Hmm, do not remember 2 and 4 right now...
The exam before that was on thermo dynamics.
Question 1-9 was short answer questions so I do not really remember them since they went too fast to get any thought at all.
Question 10 was to through various assumptions calculate if the mass of the atmosphere is bigger than the mass of the rest of the earth.
Question 11 was to calculate the amount of isolation which had to be added to keep a small hut at 10 degree celcius when the outside temperature was -10 and you had a heater inside. I answered wrong on this question since I accidentally reversed a number one time too much.
Question 14 was to calculate the difference in Gibbs energy between an imaginary type of ice which would have a melting point at 42 degree celcius instead of 0 but all other characteristics the same as normal ice.
Thats 3/5 on both tests of the larger problems.
I could take the exams of the previous week too and get roughly half of the questions from them but I am a bit bored by this now, but I could get most of the advanced (Aka the ones I needed to think about) questions from roughly every exam I have taken too. Its annoying to try to remember things just by searching through your memory though, its a lot easier when you have something that induces the memory such as similar problems or during a lecture or conversation. Also I could have gone a bit more in depth but that would have taken forever.
Also this was no proof or anything, I just wanted to test myself.
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On January 17 2009 09:11 Klockan3 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I asked if you forget that much, I know that I don't. And then I talk about things that are not just repetitions such as "what meal did you eat" but I mean out of new information that you during the time of learning it knows that it can have any sort of significance later. If you consider such information as meals, people you have seen etc then I am sure that most do not even remember a millionth of what happens because your brain do not even put it in the short term memory.
I will try to see how much I remember of the past weeks education:
Today we did quantum theory, if we go backwards we did:
Proved how the shrödinger equation works for electron orbitals.
Showed how to calculate on the photoelectic effect.
Showed how to calculate film interference.
Proved a formula between energy density in a black cavity and the emitted Em per area.
On complex analysis we did show how to utilize the change of arguments of polynomials over a closed curve to show how many solutions that polynomial have in the area enclosed by the curve. They showed both how to do it through maple and how to do it using pen and paper, I could explain but that would take over a page.
In the algebra course they just had a long winded explanation of how to construct permutations out of the act of turning objects around. Could also explain everything about that one but same as above.
Yesterday the last lesson we had was in numerical analysis about comsol, the last part of it was just a very quick version proving that comsol gives the best possible value for a finite element differential equation problem, nothing that we should know really and impossible for anyone to follow that quick reasoning. The first part was just an explanation of what comsol was.
The lesson before that was on general relativity theory, even if we haven't gotten that far yet in the course. In it they showed why all theories older than general relativity are flawed, explained the difference between general and special relativity and how it changes the view we have on the world.
The first lesson of yesterday was material science in which they explained how properties of matter is defined as the reactions of the matter when put under strain.
Two days ago the last lesson was physical math covering the course layout, showing the various differential equations we will go through in the course like Schrödinger or wave and how to solve PDE in general.
The lesson before I had a schedule interference, so I was at two, the last one of those was material science and they just explained the notion of strain and shear and how those properties work in beams. The other lesson was quantum in which they just derived the black body radiation law, at least during the hour I was there.
The first lesson this term was this wednesday was complex, nothing special just a brief overview on complex numbers and also showed how to define polarized coordinates through first creating a set of matrixes that behaves in exactly the same ways as complex numbers and show that they are rotational matrixes with the determinant equal to the absolute of the complex number, which directly gives us the polarized form of Z.
Wrote two exams in monday, the second was on theoretical electro dynamics. The first question was to show that the potential within a conducting sphere with the middle at point A inside any given electrical field is always equal to the potential at point A before you put the sphere at it.
The third question was to calculate the potential within a thick sphere that had a given charge density function, was something like 4a-3r where r goes from a to 2a.
The fifth question had a given ball with a magnetisation function and the question was to calculate the magnetic field at the middle of the ball.
Hmm, do not remember 2 and 4 right now...
The exam before that was on thermo dynamics.
Question 1-9 was short answer questions so I do not really remember them since they went too fast to get any thought at all.
Question 10 was to through various assumptions calculate if the mass of the atmosphere is bigger than the mass of the rest of the earth.
Question 11 was to calculate the amount of isolation which had to be added to keep a small hut at 10 degree celcius when the outside temperature was -10 and you had a heater inside. I answered wrong on this question since I accidentally reversed a number one time too much.
Question 14 was to calculate the difference in Gibbs energy between an imaginary type of ice which would have a melting point at 42 degree celcius instead of 0 but all other characteristics the same as normal ice.
Thats 3/5 on both tests of the larger problems.
I could take the exams of the previous week too and get roughly half of the questions from them but I am a bit bored by this now, but I could get most of the advanced (Aka the ones I needed to think about) questions from roughly every exam I have taken too. Its annoying to try to remember things just by searching through your memory though, its a lot easier when you have something that induces the memory such as similar problems or during a lecture or conversation. Also I could have gone a bit more in depth but that would have taken forever.
Also this was no proof or anything, I just wanted to test myself.
I think you remember those things because you spent a large amount of time thinking about those problems. Still, that's a very impressive feet you just pulled off. Another good way to get more out of your memory is get more sleep.
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I get straight A's. I learn stuff that I may need in my future career (math and science) and forget useless (to me) facts (history).
edit: Klockan3, those courses all seem very awesome.
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Now wouldn't it be nice if we had the memory of an elephant's
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there are 2 types of people:
Those who play the system
Those who do not
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Unless you have a photographic memory, it's not exactly easy to remember that amount of shit.
I mean if they shortened school down into like one year it might be reasonable to assume people mgiht remember some of it... but think about it:
12 years of school. I'm gonna estimate maybe... 40 weeks of school a year? I'll go on the safe side and say 36 weeks of school a year.
Now in each week you have 5 days of school for like 6 hours a day. So 30 hours a week, that's 1200 hours a year.
That's 14400 HOURS of time they spent "teaching" you. Who the hell could ever memorize 14400 hours worth of stuff? It's like not possible.
I used to feel the same way as you. When my parents would tell me "oh man I remember taking that in school but I can't remember it" I used to think "damn old people forget shit so fast huh." Now I'm in my 3rd year of college, and even though I was taking calculus as early as 10th grade, when I try to do simple math nowadays for real life problem solving, it comes extremely slowly and I've forgotten almost everything advanced.
When you get taught 14400 hours of bullshit (not even counting all the bullshit you learn at college), there's no way you're going to remember all of it. Chances are you end up remembering the shit from college that's actually relative to your field of work.
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to answer the OP's question is because the information has served its purpose. also, somewhere during the thread someone mentioned memory tricks that can help improve memory but are really only for short-term. i challenge that statement, unless your definition of short-term memory is drastically different than mine
fwiw, i think my memory's pretty decent (actually quite good in some respects.. for instance i can quote big bang theory episodes pretty much verbatim after seeing them 1-2 times but i'll be damned if i can remember even half a page of tax code. of course that's because i don't give a shit about tax and tbbt actually entertains me).
if i tried, i could probably fairly accurately recite my days quite a ways back (im speculating of course but i could probably do it, just skimming them in my head now and there isn't anything that i've particularly forgotten), but what value is there to this? i could go back a week, or a few, but it'll end eventually, then i will only remember a few events from that day, then just one event..then nothing. it's just a byproduct of me not caring, so the information gets filtered out. same applies to course material of course
oh and at the post above, being in a class for an hour in highschool does not mean you get taught an hour's worth of material.. even in university here, a 1.5hr lecture's material usually is covered by me in about 10-15 minutes prior, without any dicking around and stupid questions asked by students,but your point still stands, yes.
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Honestly, the limited capacity of long term memory is too precious to waste on the inane factoids that public school imposes.
And I think people with poor/limited life experience overvalue the learnings of public school.
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well lets say you are a History student. u like history. now do think that Physics will be interesting for u? no. because Histroy is not the same as Physics. think of of it this way. people tend to do well at things they are interested in. those people in offices who complain about their jobs. either 1: got forced by their parents or 2. chose it randomly.
also i think because most jobs require secondary education, everyone wants to get to college/uni. but then everyone will want to get high grades to get into that university... its kinda cultural now.
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On January 17 2009 07:41 Athos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 06:04 SonuvBob wrote:
Memories are reinforced when you recall them. If you review something for a few minutes each day for a week, you'll remember it for a long time, whereas if you learn everything one day and only recall it the next day for a test, you'll have trouble remembering most of it after a few weeks. Wish I'd learned that in school. =/ I learned this in school :p Anyways, there's a forgetting curve that you have to combat if you want to store things in your long term memory. The forgetting curve by Ebbinhaus shows that you really don't remember most of what you learn. So yeah, the best thing you can do is break up your studying and make multiple passes. And for god sakes, study something you are interested in.
Doesn't this reflect back on psychology its depending on the person wanting to remember what they learned 2 hours ago? I mean its all common sense shit.
On January 17 2009 10:59 HeadBangaa wrote:
Honestly, the limited capacity of long term memory is too precious to waste on the inane factoids that public school imposes.
And I think people with poor/limited life experience overvalue the learnings of public school.
I guess this explains why I didn't want to attend school b/c I dodged Advanced Placement(AP) just to be in honor classes and still remember everything to make me pass the test that I learned 2 days ago?
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On January 17 2009 09:40 Athos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 09:11 Klockan3 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I asked if you forget that much, I know that I don't. And then I talk about things that are not just repetitions such as "what meal did you eat" but I mean out of new information that you during the time of learning it knows that it can have any sort of significance later. If you consider such information as meals, people you have seen etc then I am sure that most do not even remember a millionth of what happens because your brain do not even put it in the short term memory.
I will try to see how much I remember of the past weeks education:
Today we did quantum theory, if we go backwards we did:
Proved how the shrödinger equation works for electron orbitals.
Showed how to calculate on the photoelectic effect.
Showed how to calculate film interference.
Proved a formula between energy density in a black cavity and the emitted Em per area.
On complex analysis we did show how to utilize the change of arguments of polynomials over a closed curve to show how many solutions that polynomial have in the area enclosed by the curve. They showed both how to do it through maple and how to do it using pen and paper, I could explain but that would take over a page.
In the algebra course they just had a long winded explanation of how to construct permutations out of the act of turning objects around. Could also explain everything about that one but same as above.
Yesterday the last lesson we had was in numerical analysis about comsol, the last part of it was just a very quick version proving that comsol gives the best possible value for a finite element differential equation problem, nothing that we should know really and impossible for anyone to follow that quick reasoning. The first part was just an explanation of what comsol was.
The lesson before that was on general relativity theory, even if we haven't gotten that far yet in the course. In it they showed why all theories older than general relativity are flawed, explained the difference between general and special relativity and how it changes the view we have on the world.
The first lesson of yesterday was material science in which they explained how properties of matter is defined as the reactions of the matter when put under strain.
Two days ago the last lesson was physical math covering the course layout, showing the various differential equations we will go through in the course like Schrödinger or wave and how to solve PDE in general.
The lesson before I had a schedule interference, so I was at two, the last one of those was material science and they just explained the notion of strain and shear and how those properties work in beams. The other lesson was quantum in which they just derived the black body radiation law, at least during the hour I was there.
The first lesson this term was this wednesday was complex, nothing special just a brief overview on complex numbers and also showed how to define polarized coordinates through first creating a set of matrixes that behaves in exactly the same ways as complex numbers and show that they are rotational matrixes with the determinant equal to the absolute of the complex number, which directly gives us the polarized form of Z.
Wrote two exams in monday, the second was on theoretical electro dynamics. The first question was to show that the potential within a conducting sphere with the middle at point A inside any given electrical field is always equal to the potential at point A before you put the sphere at it.
The third question was to calculate the potential within a thick sphere that had a given charge density function, was something like 4a-3r where r goes from a to 2a.
The fifth question had a given ball with a magnetisation function and the question was to calculate the magnetic field at the middle of the ball.
Hmm, do not remember 2 and 4 right now...
The exam before that was on thermo dynamics.
Question 1-9 was short answer questions so I do not really remember them since they went too fast to get any thought at all.
Question 10 was to through various assumptions calculate if the mass of the atmosphere is bigger than the mass of the rest of the earth.
Question 11 was to calculate the amount of isolation which had to be added to keep a small hut at 10 degree celcius when the outside temperature was -10 and you had a heater inside. I answered wrong on this question since I accidentally reversed a number one time too much.
Question 14 was to calculate the difference in Gibbs energy between an imaginary type of ice which would have a melting point at 42 degree celcius instead of 0 but all other characteristics the same as normal ice.
Thats 3/5 on both tests of the larger problems.
I could take the exams of the previous week too and get roughly half of the questions from them but I am a bit bored by this now, but I could get most of the advanced (Aka the ones I needed to think about) questions from roughly every exam I have taken too. Its annoying to try to remember things just by searching through your memory though, its a lot easier when you have something that induces the memory such as similar problems or during a lecture or conversation. Also I could have gone a bit more in depth but that would have taken forever.
Also this was no proof or anything, I just wanted to test myself.
I think you remember those things because you spent a large amount of time thinking about those problems. Still, that's a very impressive feet you just pulled off. Another good way to get more out of your memory is get more sleep.
I sleep like 8-9 hours per day minimum :p
Anyway, the things I learn flash through a bit now and then whether I want it or not. Like I talked about X today with Y, then on the evening/next day/next week I get flashes that makes me re enact the shit. Flashes of past experiences, I get them all the time. Like something that happened pops up for a split second and then its gone.
Maybe thats the trick? To flash through the days and sleep enough? Flashes would work as "Reusing the memory to make it long term stable" while taking almost no time and sleeping the full amount of hours have always proved to be effective to help memory.
On January 17 2009 10:49 -orb- wrote:
Unless you have a photographic memory, it's not exactly easy to remember that amount of shit.
I mean if they shortened school down into like one year it might be reasonable to assume people mgiht remember some of it... but think about it:
12 years of school. I'm gonna estimate maybe... 40 weeks of school a year? I'll go on the safe side and say 36 weeks of school a year.
Now in each week you have 5 days of school for like 6 hours a day. So 30 hours a week, that's 1200 hours a year.
That's 14400 HOURS of time they spent "teaching" you. Who the hell could ever memorize 14400 hours worth of stuff? It's like not possible.
I used to feel the same way as you. When my parents would tell me "oh man I remember taking that in school but I can't remember it" I used to think "damn old people forget shit so fast huh." Now I'm in my 3rd year of college, and even though I was taking calculus as early as 10th grade, when I try to do simple math nowadays for real life problem solving, it comes extremely slowly and I've forgotten almost everything advanced.
When you get taught 14400 hours of bullshit (not even counting all the bullshit you learn at college), there's no way you're going to remember all of it. Chances are you end up remembering the shit from college that's actually relative to your field of work.
Its not like any school system anywhere teaches you new things all the time, usually they teach you the same shit over and over and over and over to try to force you to remember a year worth of information during those 12 years.
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On January 17 2009 16:11 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 09:40 Athos wrote:On January 17 2009 09:11 Klockan3 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I asked if you forget that much, I know that I don't. And then I talk about things that are not just repetitions such as "what meal did you eat" but I mean out of new information that you during the time of learning it knows that it can have any sort of significance later. If you consider such information as meals, people you have seen etc then I am sure that most do not even remember a millionth of what happens because your brain do not even put it in the short term memory.
I will try to see how much I remember of the past weeks education:
Today we did quantum theory, if we go backwards we did:
Proved how the shrödinger equation works for electron orbitals.
Showed how to calculate on the photoelectic effect.
Showed how to calculate film interference.
Proved a formula between energy density in a black cavity and the emitted Em per area.
On complex analysis we did show how to utilize the change of arguments of polynomials over a closed curve to show how many solutions that polynomial have in the area enclosed by the curve. They showed both how to do it through maple and how to do it using pen and paper, I could explain but that would take over a page.
In the algebra course they just had a long winded explanation of how to construct permutations out of the act of turning objects around. Could also explain everything about that one but same as above.
Yesterday the last lesson we had was in numerical analysis about comsol, the last part of it was just a very quick version proving that comsol gives the best possible value for a finite element differential equation problem, nothing that we should know really and impossible for anyone to follow that quick reasoning. The first part was just an explanation of what comsol was.
The lesson before that was on general relativity theory, even if we haven't gotten that far yet in the course. In it they showed why all theories older than general relativity are flawed, explained the difference between general and special relativity and how it changes the view we have on the world.
The first lesson of yesterday was material science in which they explained how properties of matter is defined as the reactions of the matter when put under strain.
Two days ago the last lesson was physical math covering the course layout, showing the various differential equations we will go through in the course like Schrödinger or wave and how to solve PDE in general.
The lesson before I had a schedule interference, so I was at two, the last one of those was material science and they just explained the notion of strain and shear and how those properties work in beams. The other lesson was quantum in which they just derived the black body radiation law, at least during the hour I was there.
The first lesson this term was this wednesday was complex, nothing special just a brief overview on complex numbers and also showed how to define polarized coordinates through first creating a set of matrixes that behaves in exactly the same ways as complex numbers and show that they are rotational matrixes with the determinant equal to the absolute of the complex number, which directly gives us the polarized form of Z.
Wrote two exams in monday, the second was on theoretical electro dynamics. The first question was to show that the potential within a conducting sphere with the middle at point A inside any given electrical field is always equal to the potential at point A before you put the sphere at it.
The third question was to calculate the potential within a thick sphere that had a given charge density function, was something like 4a-3r where r goes from a to 2a.
The fifth question had a given ball with a magnetisation function and the question was to calculate the magnetic field at the middle of the ball.
Hmm, do not remember 2 and 4 right now...
The exam before that was on thermo dynamics.
Question 1-9 was short answer questions so I do not really remember them since they went too fast to get any thought at all.
Question 10 was to through various assumptions calculate if the mass of the atmosphere is bigger than the mass of the rest of the earth.
Question 11 was to calculate the amount of isolation which had to be added to keep a small hut at 10 degree celcius when the outside temperature was -10 and you had a heater inside. I answered wrong on this question since I accidentally reversed a number one time too much.
Question 14 was to calculate the difference in Gibbs energy between an imaginary type of ice which would have a melting point at 42 degree celcius instead of 0 but all other characteristics the same as normal ice.
Thats 3/5 on both tests of the larger problems.
I could take the exams of the previous week too and get roughly half of the questions from them but I am a bit bored by this now, but I could get most of the advanced (Aka the ones I needed to think about) questions from roughly every exam I have taken too. Its annoying to try to remember things just by searching through your memory though, its a lot easier when you have something that induces the memory such as similar problems or during a lecture or conversation. Also I could have gone a bit more in depth but that would have taken forever.
Also this was no proof or anything, I just wanted to test myself.
I think you remember those things because you spent a large amount of time thinking about those problems. Still, that's a very impressive feet you just pulled off. Another good way to get more out of your memory is get more sleep. I sleep like 8-9 hours per day minimum :p Anyway, the things I learn flash through a bit now and then whether I want it or not. Like I talked about X today with Y, then on the evening/next day/next week I get flashes that makes me re enact the shit. Flashes of past experiences, I get them all the time. Like something that happened pops up for a split second and then its gone. Maybe thats the trick? To flash through the days and sleep enough? Flashes would work as "Reusing the memory to make it long term stable" while taking almost no time and sleeping the full amount of hours have always proved to be effective to help memory. Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 10:49 -orb- wrote:
Unless you have a photographic memory, it's not exactly easy to remember that amount of shit.
I mean if they shortened school down into like one year it might be reasonable to assume people mgiht remember some of it... but think about it:
12 years of school. I'm gonna estimate maybe... 40 weeks of school a year? I'll go on the safe side and say 36 weeks of school a year.
Now in each week you have 5 days of school for like 6 hours a day. So 30 hours a week, that's 1200 hours a year.
That's 14400 HOURS of time they spent "teaching" you. Who the hell could ever memorize 14400 hours worth of stuff? It's like not possible.
I used to feel the same way as you. When my parents would tell me "oh man I remember taking that in school but I can't remember it" I used to think "damn old people forget shit so fast huh." Now I'm in my 3rd year of college, and even though I was taking calculus as early as 10th grade, when I try to do simple math nowadays for real life problem solving, it comes extremely slowly and I've forgotten almost everything advanced.
When you get taught 14400 hours of bullshit (not even counting all the bullshit you learn at college), there's no way you're going to remember all of it. Chances are you end up remembering the shit from college that's actually relative to your field of work. Its not like any school system anywhere teaches you new things all the time, usually they teach you the same shit over and over and over and over to try to force you to remember a year worth of information during those 12 years.
I guess this could work well for the person wanting to reflash thru their memory bank of what they were doing yesterday while talking on the phone. I am not that type of person. Whatever happened yesterday happened. If I took a picture of it then yea maybe in 2 years from now I can look at what I did today and might remember what I was doing. Like right now I am posting this reply. If it wasn't for tl.net keeping my posts history I sure as hell wouldn't remember me typing this 2 years from now. I guess the factor of my 12 years of education is the only thing I can really rely on living in this world atm.
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A couple of things. First, many times school is designed to crush your inquiring spirit. Public school especially has you repeat the same thing over and over for weeks before moving onto something new. There is not enough time to make connections with the current topic and what you did two topics ago. It is structured in such a way that hours of busy work completely turns off your mind.
I believe that pretty much anyone can learn anything. The things Klockan3 knows may be complicated, but they are not as complicated as most people imagine. I think the correct ATTITUDE is more important than the intellect. If your attitude is one of humility, always asking questions, never intellectually compromising, and staying flexible and adaptable, learning is easy.
Another key to not forgetting a lot of material is to not learn much in the first place. Always generalize, stereotype, learn principles, and make connections. It is part of being intellectually honest. If you just accept a new fact without proving it to yourself, you have to learn an additional chunk of information. If, however, you prove it to yourself you do not have to learn new information, because what you have just learned is understood by you in terms of things you already know. Its no different from computer software design. You don't write new code to make a gui, you call existing libraries. Even if it looks completely different, you only write minimal extra code. (See there I go making generalizations and associations...)
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Didn't read most of it but my personal opinion:
I forgot a lot of what I have learned, but I remembered all the "essentials" that I know it is fundimental and basic and I should know it. Specific details of things I might have forgotten, but I know I will remember enough logics behind it that, if things are needed agian, would take me very little time to refresh myself and pick it back up in minimal time.
Yes public school sucks, I've been there, but I was not crushed and you shouldn't let stuff "crush" you because it sucks. Should try instead to survive and rape it.
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On January 17 2009 16:24 fight_or_flight wrote:
I believe that pretty much anyone can learn anything. The things Klockan3 knows may be complicated, but they are not as complicated as most people imagine. I think the correct ATTITUDE is more important than the intellect. If your attitude is one of humility, always asking questions, never intellectually compromising, and staying flexible and adaptable, learning is easy.
It is somewhere around these lines I am thinking, most usually make it harder for themselves than they have to and I want to believe that if they approached learning in a very different way they could learn things at more similar speeds to me and then also have a better recollection of it afterwards than they do currently.
I think that its wrong to force people to do things over and over and over until they go on about learning as if they were robots, we are not made to learn or remember like machines but that is all they are trying to get you to do. I never got any kind of top grades till I got into the higher levels of education, there long term memory of things is essential which means that everything is cake for me there.
I think the problem is that people are taught to just learn for short term and I think the repetitiveness hurts the long term abilities of the memory and peoples ability to think in general. The trick is to not focus on facts, but to focus on relations between facts which can let you derive a ton of facts from very little memory usage and also lets you sort new information quickly. But every damn education just focuses on trying to teach facts, I really hate that.
On January 17 2009 16:21 Kennelie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2009 16:11 Klockan3 wrote:On January 17 2009 09:40 Athos wrote:On January 17 2009 09:11 Klockan3 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
I asked if you forget that much, I know that I don't. And then I talk about things that are not just repetitions such as "what meal did you eat" but I mean out of new information that you during the time of learning it knows that it can have any sort of significance later. If you consider such information as meals, people you have seen etc then I am sure that most do not even remember a millionth of what happens because your brain do not even put it in the short term memory.
I will try to see how much I remember of the past weeks education:
Today we did quantum theory, if we go backwards we did:
Proved how the shrödinger equation works for electron orbitals.
Showed how to calculate on the photoelectic effect.
Showed how to calculate film interference.
Proved a formula between energy density in a black cavity and the emitted Em per area.
On complex analysis we did show how to utilize the change of arguments of polynomials over a closed curve to show how many solutions that polynomial have in the area enclosed by the curve. They showed both how to do it through maple and how to do it using pen and paper, I could explain but that would take over a page.
In the algebra course they just had a long winded explanation of how to construct permutations out of the act of turning objects around. Could also explain everything about that one but same as above.
Yesterday the last lesson we had was in numerical analysis about comsol, the last part of it was just a very quick version proving that comsol gives the best possible value for a finite element differential equation problem, nothing that we should know really and impossible for anyone to follow that quick reasoning. The first part was just an explanation of what comsol was.
The lesson before that was on general relativity theory, even if we haven't gotten that far yet in the course. In it they showed why all theories older than general relativity are flawed, explained the difference between general and special relativity and how it changes the view we have on the world.
The first lesson of yesterday was material science in which they explained how properties of matter is defined as the reactions of the matter when put under strain.
Two days ago the last lesson was physical math covering the course layout, showing the various differential equations we will go through in the course like Schrödinger or wave and how to solve PDE in general.
The lesson before I had a schedule interference, so I was at two, the last one of those was material science and they just explained the notion of strain and shear and how those properties work in beams. The other lesson was quantum in which they just derived the black body radiation law, at least during the hour I was there.
The first lesson this term was this wednesday was complex, nothing special just a brief overview on complex numbers and also showed how to define polarized coordinates through first creating a set of matrixes that behaves in exactly the same ways as complex numbers and show that they are rotational matrixes with the determinant equal to the absolute of the complex number, which directly gives us the polarized form of Z.
Wrote two exams in monday, the second was on theoretical electro dynamics. The first question was to show that the potential within a conducting sphere with the middle at point A inside any given electrical field is always equal to the potential at point A before you put the sphere at it.
The third question was to calculate the potential within a thick sphere that had a given charge density function, was something like 4a-3r where r goes from a to 2a.
The fifth question had a given ball with a magnetisation function and the question was to calculate the magnetic field at the middle of the ball.
Hmm, do not remember 2 and 4 right now...
The exam before that was on thermo dynamics.
Question 1-9 was short answer questions so I do not really remember them since they went too fast to get any thought at all.
Question 10 was to through various assumptions calculate if the mass of the atmosphere is bigger than the mass of the rest of the earth.
Question 11 was to calculate the amount of isolation which had to be added to keep a small hut at 10 degree celcius when the outside temperature was -10 and you had a heater inside. I answered wrong on this question since I accidentally reversed a number one time too much.
Question 14 was to calculate the difference in Gibbs energy between an imaginary type of ice which would have a melting point at 42 degree celcius instead of 0 but all other characteristics the same as normal ice.
Thats 3/5 on both tests of the larger problems.
I could take the exams of the previous week too and get roughly half of the questions from them but I am a bit bored by this now, but I could get most of the advanced (Aka the ones I needed to think about) questions from roughly every exam I have taken too. Its annoying to try to remember things just by searching through your memory though, its a lot easier when you have something that induces the memory such as similar problems or during a lecture or conversation. Also I could have gone a bit more in depth but that would have taken forever.
Also this was no proof or anything, I just wanted to test myself.
I think you remember those things because you spent a large amount of time thinking about those problems. Still, that's a very impressive feet you just pulled off. Another good way to get more out of your memory is get more sleep. I sleep like 8-9 hours per day minimum :p Anyway, the things I learn flash through a bit now and then whether I want it or not. Like I talked about X today with Y, then on the evening/next day/next week I get flashes that makes me re enact the shit. Flashes of past experiences, I get them all the time. Like something that happened pops up for a split second and then its gone. Maybe thats the trick? To flash through the days and sleep enough? Flashes would work as "Reusing the memory to make it long term stable" while taking almost no time and sleeping the full amount of hours have always proved to be effective to help memory. On January 17 2009 10:49 -orb- wrote:
Unless you have a photographic memory, it's not exactly easy to remember that amount of shit.
I mean if they shortened school down into like one year it might be reasonable to assume people mgiht remember some of it... but think about it:
12 years of school. I'm gonna estimate maybe... 40 weeks of school a year? I'll go on the safe side and say 36 weeks of school a year.
Now in each week you have 5 days of school for like 6 hours a day. So 30 hours a week, that's 1200 hours a year.
That's 14400 HOURS of time they spent "teaching" you. Who the hell could ever memorize 14400 hours worth of stuff? It's like not possible.
I used to feel the same way as you. When my parents would tell me "oh man I remember taking that in school but I can't remember it" I used to think "damn old people forget shit so fast huh." Now I'm in my 3rd year of college, and even though I was taking calculus as early as 10th grade, when I try to do simple math nowadays for real life problem solving, it comes extremely slowly and I've forgotten almost everything advanced.
When you get taught 14400 hours of bullshit (not even counting all the bullshit you learn at college), there's no way you're going to remember all of it. Chances are you end up remembering the shit from college that's actually relative to your field of work. Its not like any school system anywhere teaches you new things all the time, usually they teach you the same shit over and over and over and over to try to force you to remember a year worth of information during those 12 years. I guess this could work well for the person wanting to reflash thru their memory bank of what they were doing yesterday while talking on the phone. I am not that type of person. Whatever happened yesterday happened. If I took a picture of it then yea maybe in 2 years from now I can look at what I did today and might remember what I was doing. Like right now I am posting this reply. If it wasn't for tl.net keeping my posts history I sure as hell wouldn't remember me typing this 2 years from now. I guess the factor of my 12 years of education is the only thing I can really rely on living in this world atm.
But the thing is that all studies gets a ton easier when you instead of having to do a lot of studies at home can just rehash the day a few seconds now and then.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/7/7a/200px-ForgettingCurve.svg.png)
