The Story of John Nash

Professor R.J. Duffin wrote only one line in his recommendation letter when a young boy named John Nash applied at Princeton for graduation in 1948, “This man is a genius”. Born in 1948, this man is a real genius and one of the best mathematicians in the planet. His famous ‘Nash Equilibrium’ is a cornerstone in the field of economics. He won Novel Prize for his work in 1994. His work on cooperative games and governing dynamics are also equally famous. While he was still an undergraduate at the Princeton, he had managed to prove Brouwer’s fixed point theorem. Later, he solved one of the Riemann’s most perplexing mathematical solutions.(Read More)

Your Final Blow, At The Exam Hall

Once you are ready to take exam, one you feel you have made out all possible counter moves, you make the final tackle. Your final blow is what you make in the exam hall. This final blow of yours determines your position in the exam results. If you recoil from the tackle, you should be seeking an average position or somewhere below it but if you manage to stand still after the final blow then you deserve to be the best!(Read More)

Your Next Exam Has An Ace For You

6 of 9 students tend to forget things at the exam hall. The extent to which they tend to forget things ranges from 20%-65% of what is asked in exam. They are confident that they have gone through that section of the course and yet forget to devise the answer required. Students fail even their preparation is complete and they fail every now and then. Change the way you remember things and knock yourself out of the category of those students.(Read More)

Taking Exams, Now You Will Love To:

How do you feel about an exam that you are set to take next week or when your university exams are on? 19 out of 20 students do not feel good about it. Let me ask you, how do you feel when you have Champion’s League Final Match or ICC Cricket World cup Final Game? Well, it’s certainly a “Whoa!”  It definitely is exciting and you are absolutely not going to miss it even if it is on 2012-12-20 night.

Why?

Because it is interesting, far more interesting and exciting than those fat books with worthless words of knowledge that is never going to be helpful to you!

Now, let’s come back to reality. Exams suck! But, they are inevitable and yes, they will always be with you until you die. Here in this article, I have tried to take a quick look over the methodologies adapted by those geniuses, who have successfully managed to get good grades at their University Exams and Assessment Tests, while they prepare themselves for the battle. Those methods can be useful to you as well and who knows, you could be the next University Exam Topper!(Read More)

Thinks Like the Actors in the Theaters

Have you ever wondered how the actors of a play can remember such long dialogues of the script and be fluent while presenting them?

How can actors in a theatre remember all of the script of the entire drama all at once?

 Is there some sort of magic? Nope!

 Actors never try to rot remember their dialogues for the play. All they do is they put themselves into the role of the character they are playing and feel the character’s intension so that the dialogues comes naturally and fluently. Researchers have found out that the secrets inside all this is a technique called “active experiencing”. ACTIVE EXPERIENCING is a process of breaking down the written script into logically connected intensions. Person using this technique uses physical, mental as well as emotional channels to communicate to those stuffs related to that person as a result it becomes easier for him to act and present himself as the same person. (Read More)

The Greatest Mind of the Century: A Post Mortem

Who would not like to have a brain like that of Albert Einstein, after all it is his brain that produced all the confusing relativistic explanations and made him the greatest scientist of all time. I have tried to get into his brain and drag out some of the facts about his brain.  And here I present those facts:

·         Albert Einstein is one of the intellectual giants in the history. But medical reports say that Einstein suffered from childhood dyslexia and he himself has admitted that he started to talk comparatively later (not earlier that 3 years of age) and had problem remembering words.

·         Although he had these childhood problems, doctors say his brain was adept at the end of his life. (Read More)

Its All About Your Brain

Your brain uses a fifth(20%) of all your blood. It needs it to keep up with the heavy metabolic demands of its neurons. It needs not only oxygen but glucose too

A 10 minute loss of oxygen will usually cause significant neural damage. Cold can lengthen this time, which is why cold-water drowning victims have been revived after as much as 40 minutes - without brain damage.(Read More)

Lets Have The Real Brain Training

http://memory-methods.blogspot.com/2010/11/lets-have-real-brain-training.html

We have had enough of what you do? How you start? And, how you take your learning process to optimize your memory? But wait, memory centre is like a rubber band, the more you stretch, the greater its size will be, until it has reached its limit. Now, the question is how can you stretch your memory center? How can you optimize its size? The answer is as simple as the question…..through practices.

How can you exercise your brain? Well, it’s not like holding dumb bells for your arms but it definitely is easy and efficient. All you need to do is come across the situations where you need to utilize your brain to its most. Play mind games in your computer and in your cell phones, solve brain teasers and yes do them sincerely!(Read More)

Try Remembering in Chunks

Are u having difficulties remembering long numbers like phone numbers, your bank account numbers????

Then a simple process called “chunking” can help u a lot in remembering stuffs like this. Chunking is a simple yet effective memory improvement method. The chunking process includes breaking down of long units into small easily remember able groupings or chunks. It will be much more convenient if the chunks contain no more than 7(±2) separate items of information due to the reason that a normal person’s mind can retain only 7(±2) items of information at a time in the short-term memory.(Read More)

Chew Gums to Charge Your Brain

What is your favorite chewing gum?

Juicy Fruit? Spout? Orbit? Double mint? Or, may be any other. Well I am fond of Spout. Ever since my childhood, I have been fond of chewing gums. I chew gums in every once in a while, especially when I get stressed and at the times of my exams. Believe it or not, chewing gums are one of the best exercises for our brain.

Researches show that chewing gums can boost memory power by 35%- 40%. They further conclude that chewing gums help the brain tackle the stressful situations more efficiently.(Read More)

Smokers' Brain- What Researches Say?

Think about the greatest scientist ever, Albert Einstein. Think about the person with more than 1300 patents in his name, Thomas Alva Edison. Think about famous American astronomer, Edwin Hubble; the inventor of telephone, Alexander Graham Bell; the founder of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Can you tell the similarity between all these brilliant heads? Let me help you, all of them were smokers, in fact all of them had an addiction to it. Who might forget the famous picture of Albert Einstein with his inseparable pipe and his saying “Smoking Helps Me Clear My Mind”.(Read More)

Stress!

How do you feel when you get a promotion at your job? Or when you top your class? Or when you get detained for not doing your home works? Or when you have fever? Or when you get a new house as a reward from your company? Or when you are about to propose a girl (or a boy)?

It is true that you will feel differently at each of the situations, but Dr Steve Burns, a renowned psychologist defines all these as the causes of stress. That is to say, the word stress no longer means something that you need to worry about.

Psychologists, today, define stress as the human response to the changes going around them. The word stress was coined in 1930 by an endocrinologist Hans Selye. A bit of stress is always good. It makes your life exciting and worth living with the joy it demands. But too much of stress not only cause impairments to your memory and creativity, but also you social life and your health too. Here I present a stress measurement chart that will help you find out the level of your stress. The stress quiz given below is taken from the Academy Resource Centre of Sweet Briar College.

To each of the questions given below, rate yourself as to how you typically react in each of the situations listed below. There is no right or wrong answers.

1 = Never

2 = Sometimes

3 = Frequently
4 = Always

Top of Form

Enter a number in the box for each question. When you complete the questionnaire, add up you total number of points and match your result with the range given to know your stress level.

1. Do you try to do as much as possible in the least amount of time?

2. Do you become impatient with delays or interruptions?

3. Do you always have to win at games to enjoy yourself?

4. Do you find yourself speeding up the car to beat the red light?

5. Are you unlikely to ask for or indicate you need help with a problem?

6. Do you constantly seek the respect and admiration of others?

7. Are you overly critical of the way others do their work?

8. Do you have the habit of looking at your watch or clock often?

9.Do you constantly strive to better your position and achievements?

10. Do you spread yourself "too thin" in terms of your time?

11. Do you have the habit of doing more than one thing at a time?

12. Do you frequently get angry or irritable?

13. Do you have little time for hobbies or time by yourself?

14. Do you have a tendency to talk quickly or hasten conversations?

15. Do you consider yourself hard-driving?

16. Do your friends or relatives consider you hard-driving?

17. Do you have a tendency to get involved in multiple projects?

18. Do you have a lot of deadlines in your work?

19. Do you feel vaguely guilty if you relax and do nothing during leisure?

20. Do you take on too many responsibilities?
Ø If your score is between 20 and 30, chances are you are non-productive or your life lacks stimulation.
Ø A score between 31 and 50 designates a good balance in your ability to handle and control stress.
Ø If you tallied up a score ranging between 51 and 60, your stress level is marginal and you are     bordering on being excessively tense.

If your total number of points exceeds 60, you may be a candidate for heart disease.

Method of Loci

In the previous two memory improvements techniques, the name of the techniques could help you figure out about the technique to a greater extent. I guess the situation is not the same today. Before getting into what "Method of Loci" actually is, I am going to tell a story, a story of an amazing memory man. This story was covered by the BBC and the man in this story is, in fact, the world memory champion 2002. His name is Andi Bell.

Once Andi Bell was given ten shuffled packs of playing cards and given 20 minutes to memorize every single card. When he was tested, he correctly remembered the position of all 520 cards in the pack and also the value of every single card.

Andi explained, "When I memorize a deck of cards, I turn each card into a picture and this is the colorful animal or object that I associate with the particular card to memorize it."

He called this method of his "Location Method". In this method he created a bizarre journey with a cost of colorful images and characters. He imagined taking the journey and associated the pictures and images passing by with the cards to memorize them. He said "As a child I had a conventionally good memory. But once you learn a technique like the location technique, it takes everything beyond what you can do naturally."

If analyzed minutely, Andi’s method of location is, in fact, a variation in an ancient method called the "Method of Loci". Method of Loci was first described by Greek Scholar Simonides in 500 BC in which memory power is drastically increased by using a well known location to place things that you wish to remember. This method was initially used by the orators to remember their speech.

To use this technique, you must identify a common path that you can easily remember. This can be the one from your school to home or from your kitchen to your room. The path that you chose needs to be familiar to you. Once you have determined your path, imagine yourself walking along it and identify specific landmarks that you will pass (your door, the bus stop etc.). Then associate each piece of the information that you wish to remember with these landmarks. At the beginning, this might be a bit difficult but trust me, this method is the most ancient and the most efficient method ever devised.

Psychokinesis

In one of the religious books in Hinduism, the Ramayana, Lord Ram defeats the devil king Ravana and returns in a flying carriage. The book describes this flying object to be driven by something non mechanical. In fact it is the god’s power that drives the vehicle. Do you think miracle as such is possible at present time?

Can it be possible for normal people like us to perform such miracles?

I will put up some relevant examples and evidences and let you to decide the answer to the question. In November 22nd 1973, a program host, through BBC, named Jimmy Yongso invited a person named Yuri Geller. She claimed to have some miraculous capabilities that were witnessed never before. Indeed, she opened a lock, made a knife and a spoon move and also stopped a moving hand of a clock without even touching them!!! So many people around the world blamed her of forgery and cheating. A team of scientists including Stanford, Edgeld and Puthoff tested the lady but could not prove the accusation.

At 1970s many people around the world claimed to have such capacity. A TV reality show presented a lady named Barbera who bent 53 spoons in the show through the gentle touch of her hand.

A polish woman named Stannis Lava was invited to another television reality show. But before she demonstrated her talents she went unconscious and introduces herself as Little Stacea.

With these miraculous events happening all around the world, a huge number of minds started to ponder why? In 1980, a test subject named Mona Colagela was brought into observation. She claimed to make a matchstick and a cigarette move. Hundreds of advanced machines and technologies were used but not an ounce of cheating was detected. Instead some interesting results were obtained. Those results were:

• Her heart beat was found to increase to 240 times per minute.
• She was generating three quarter times more electricity that a normal human body did.
• Her body weight decreased at a rate of 1.6 kilograms per hour.
• At the times of thunderstorm, her capacity decreased.

Dr D V Rhine was one of the early birds to make a detailed study in this sector. He called this unusual phenomenon "psychocymesis". Psychocymesis is the power of the mind to control the physical things. He classified psychocymesis into two types, macro psychocymesis which could be detected by naked eye and micro psychocymesis which could not be detected by the naked eyes.

Large number of researches has concluded that this unusual power of mind to control over the physical things is contained in each one of us but it comes out only in those of us who have a very strong will power.

Alcohols and Memory

It has been known to all of us that alcohol is a health hazard and a large number of negative effects on our health. Now what can alcohols possibly do to our memory?

Researches done at different times have shown that alcohols primarily interfere with the ability to form new long term memories. As the level of consumption is increased, the degree of memory impairment is found to increase in the proportionate level.

A research done in 1991 showed that the impact if alcohol on the memory power on the formation of new long term memories of facts and events is far greater than that of the drugs. These memory impairments include forgetting someone’s birth days and forgetting where things are normally kept.

Amazing Brain Facts II

Albert Einsteins brain weighed 1,230 grams (2.71 lbs), significantly less then the human average of 1,300g to 1,400g (3 lbs) contrary to popular belief. Here are other interesting facts about our brain in this second addition to previous facts:

The cerebellum contains half of all the neurons in the brain but comprises only 10% of the brain.

70,000 is the number of thoughts that it is estimated the human brain produces on an average day.

The brain itself is incapable of feeling pain due to lack of pain receptors. Once the skull is opened it is possible to operate on the brain with the patient awake.

After age 30, the brain shrinks a quarter of a percent (0.25%) in mass each year.

Our Brain consists of 60% White matter and 40% Grey matter. White Matter is the supporting matter and Grey Matter is the thinking matter of the brain. If the brain was a computer the grey matter would be the computer itself and the white matter its cables.

Of that oxygen consumed, 6% will be used by the brain's white matter and 94% by the grey matter.

15-20% of all blood pumped out of the heart goes directly to the brain.

Each time we blink, our brain kicks in and keeps things illuminated so the whole world doesn’t go dark each time we blink (about 20,000 times a day).

All the thinking in the brain is about electricity and chemicals. The brain is more active and thinks more at night than during the day.

More electrical impulses are generated in one day by a single human brain than by all the telephones in the world.

Men and Women's brain react differently to pain.

Alcohol interferes with brain processes by weakening connections between neurons.

Reading aloud and talking often to a young child promotes brain development.

The old adage of humans only using 10% of their brain is not true. Every part of the brain has a known function.

Rehearsal II

Repeating things time and again creates a definite pattern to the things when they get encoded into the memory. Many of us remember the childhood rhymes. Whatever age we may gain or wherever we may go, if a musical tune of one of our childhood rhymes is played, its words automatically come through. These words are never even looked once we reach to higher grades of the school yet they come out as though they were learnt a few moments ago.

When the things that are encoded into the memory through rehearsal re tried to access, they come out in the exact pattern we learnt. As previously said, repeating things again and again helps us to set things into our memory for longer period of time.

The act of rehearsal should be a part of our daily life, if we wish to lead a better and more efficient life. You can recall the derivations in your physics book while you are watching TV of helping your mom in the kitchen. You can mentally solve (or at least think about ) a mathematical problem when you are bathing so that you can remember the process. This may sound ‘geek’ to you but researches conducted by different groups of people have concluded the same thing, this method really works!!!(Click The Topic To Read More)

Rehearsal I

By the topic of the article, the ringer might have gone into your mind about today’s discussion. But before going into the discussion, I would like to put forth a set of questions. I need you to answer them seriously and with extreme care. The questions are as follows:

• What is your name?
• What is the name of your school?
• What is the name of your toothpaste?
• What deodorant do you use?

The first thing that comes into your mind might be like this:

“What rubbish!” or “what part of this question set needs to be answered seriously?”

And you might instantly burst into laughter. But what if I say these questions will be included to your exam papers?

Nothing more needs to be said! Had these questions been from your exam papers, you would have scored 100 %. This article will not ensure that these questions will be included into your exam papers. Rather, in this article, I would draw your attention to critical analysis of the above questionnaire and the result you have got.

When was the last time you recited your name to remember it?

This is nonsense. Your name is given to you when you are a kid then after you just remember it. And you never forget your name, unless your name is Thomas Edison. The same is the case for the name of your school/college.

Again, how many times do you come across your tooth paste?

May be twice a day? And how many times do you go through its name?

Rarely. Yet you manage to remember its name and you never forget. The same is the case for your deodorant.

But why is that we never tend to forget our name, the name of our schools, the toothpaste and the deodorant we use. We even do not confuse our name with others or the name of our toothpastes and deodorants. Why?

I have got my explanation. Though you have wasted you time rote learning your name, you have responded to it whenever the word that correspond to your name has been called. So you never need to learn your name. Similar is the case for your schools name.

Whenever you use your toothpaste and deodorant although you never read its name to remember it, you thoroughly come across it, its color and shape and other details. Your regular interface to these details causes a pattern to be created in your memory which holds the object.

This regular interface of the things and the details regarding the things that causes permanent clip of the object to be recorded into the memory is called rehearsal. Rehearsal is the process in which the thing to be remembered is presented over and over until it is embedded into your long term memory.

In the next article I shall present you with the different methods of rehearsal applied around the world and a tested schedule for the rehearsal that will create a pattern for your long term memory.

Diets For Good Memory Power

A living human body is composed of a large number and different types of cells, functioning together to form different body systems. Every cell in our body needs a supply of oxygen to stay alive and work properly. This theorem is equally true for the brain cells also.

Healthy food habits and balanced diet not only help these cells stay alive but play a very important role in keeping these cells at a very good form. Once the different cells of our body are at good status, it would be very easy for us to perform any sort of task with cent percent efficiency.

It has been proved that ‘healthy food combined with healthy habits and healthy environment provides healthy mind to the students’.

The minimum daily requirements of minerals and vitamins for healthy mind are given below:

Vitamin B1	1-1.2 mg
Vitamin B2	1.1-1.3 mg
Vitamin B3	14-16 mg
Vitamin B4	2.5 mg
Vitamin B6	1.5-1.8 mg
Vitamin B12	2 mcg
Folic Acid	160-180 mg
Vitamin C	30-40mg
Calcium	700-800 mg
Iron	8 mg
Phosphorous	850-1000 mg
Magnesium	200-230 mg
Zinc	9-12 mg
Potassium	3-6 gm

Based upon the daily dietary requirements, here in this article I have presented a dietary chart that contains dietary arrangements for breakfast, lunch and dinners. The chart is as follows:

Breakfast:

-          Dry Fruits (like raisins, figs, apricots, cashews, dates, peaches, etc.)

-          A cup of honey with two spoonful of honey

-          Unsweetened fruit juices

-          Yolk of an egg

Lunch/ Meal:

-          Brown Rice

-          Meat or fish

-          Soya bean or any other cereal about 50 gm

-          Fibrous vegetables

-          Fresh cut salads

-          Water

Snacks:

-          Ground nut (a fistful of)

-          Low fat cheese or peanut butter

-          Apple, orange or any one fruit item( at least one fruit item must be contained)

-          Water

Dinner:

-          Chapattis

-          Potato, Turnip, Green leafy vegetables ( like Brocolli, Letuce, Kale, Spinach )

-          Cereals

-          Water

Keep in mind:

-          Our body needs adequate supply of water for proper functioning. Regularly taken water helps to keep our brain active and fresh.

-          Fruits are very important for good memory. So it is important the food we take everyday contain at least one fruit item.

-          You can give variations to what you eat. For example, you do not to take all types of dry fruits at a time, you may take in such a way that every type of fruit are included and that are at regular variations.

Associating II

How many of us know about Bill Gates? Almost every one of us, for sure. But did you know that Bill Gates used to amaze his friends by remembering hundreds of codes from the original programming language he developed.

At times, there has been news of such living wonders.

Whether it is of a restaurateur who continues to draw huge crowds every eve because he could remember the  names of each of his customer of it is of a salesperson who made the highest earning in the company just because she could remember her client’s personal information. I bet none of them had supernatural powers!

They studied their mind and mastered the way to memorize things and this appeared supernatural to us!

How can we remember so many names and other details of so many people?

Think of two people say Abraham Cole and Ibrahim Kohl. The two names seem quite similar. But think of this, the former is usually a Christian name and the latter is usually a Muslim name. You may find it pretty hard to remember the names if you are entangled between the similarities between them, but if you can find some more differences like I did, the names will be as different as Robert and Lucy.

Always try to relate together the things that we need to remember if they are different from one another and note the differences if they appear similar to each other.

Like in the above case, to note down the differences, you may see other details. One of them may be fair and the other may be dark in complexion. One might have a long nose or dark hair or blue eyes and the other might not. Also if you want to remember the name of the person you have just met, try to use his/her name as many times as possible while you are at a conversation with the person but in the mean time you need to make sure that the person is not irritated and does not know what you are trying to do! A piece of information is given below:

               

                A:  Hi, I am Ibrahim Kohl.

               

    B: Ibrahim Kohl you say! Hi I am Steven Parker. Nice to meet you Ibrahim!

               

                A: Nice to meet you too!

                B: So, Mr. Ibrahim Kohl, where did you say you work?

                A: Oh! I work at the press, the fourth street down the road, near the park.

   B:And, where did you say you are from, Ibrahim?Let me guess, a name such as Ibrahim Kohl                            takes me straight to the Middle- East to some village in Kazakhstan or Pakistan, may be?

    A: Sorry, I am from Venezuela!

In the above conversation, person B uses the name of person A several times in his conversation and this in turn will help him to remember the name for longer period of time!!!