TORON Multimedia Services Hamburg

by Jack Korten (Australia)

The word "mnemonic" is derived from the Ancient Greek word Mnemosyne, the name of the goddess of memory in Greek mythology.   Mnemonics – a memorisation technique.

In Germany, it is called: "donkey's bridge" (Eselsbrücke).
Donkeys are very afraid of water and refuse to wade through even the smallest streams.
To provide encouragement, a ford or small bridge is built, the "donkey's bridge", which leads to the required result.

Below are a few of the more common mnemonics:

Pangram   (i.e. using every letter of the alphabet)
pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs  

Calendar months
Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one, Except for February all alone,
It has twenty-eight each year, but twenty-nine each leap year.

Astronomy
Order of planets from the Sun:
(Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)
My Very Easy Method, Just Set Up Nine Planets
Note: Since 24 August 2006, Pluto is known as a dwarf planet.

Biology
To remember the order of taxonomy:
(Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species):
Dear King Philip Came Over From Great Spain

Physics
Sequence of colors in a rainbow or in a visible spectrum:
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet:
ROY G BIV, or "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain"

Mathematics
mathematical constant π
3.14159265
How I wish I could recollect pi easily today

The ascending order of Roman numerals: LCDM ...
50, 100, 500, 1000
Lucky Cows Drink Milk

Information Technology
By now, we are all familiar with the terms Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte
For the next four steps in the order of magnitude, I have created my own Mnemonic
(Donkey's  Bridge):  It's as easy as PEZY: Peta, Exa, Zetta and Yotta.