Thursday, April 2, 2009

Mother no longer keeps the solar system in order

I have always been a sucker for mnemonics and memory-aids in general. The good thing is that when I was growing up, I used to make them up instinctively and with a natural ease, and boy! did I have an elephant's memory.
I am sure pretty much everybody used the Pandit Badri Prasad Har Har Bole mantra to learn their trig ratios back in high school and the nifty little 'VIBGYOR' for the spectrum. I still remember memorising the top half of the reactivity series of metals using this sentence: Kalu Ne Baba Ka Magga Almari se Zameen par Fenk diya (K, Na, Ba, Ca, Mg, Al, Zn, Fe). Thanks to this mnemonic, I not only remember that something called a reactivity series of metals exists and I had studied it in school, I actually remember the series itself (well, ok -- the first half of it). And it's been more than 10 years!
My favourite mnemonic though, has always been something I came across when I was much much younger - the nine planets mnemonic. Not only does "My Very Earnest Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets" work like a charm in memorizing the names of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in the right order, I used to totally dig the fact that it actually contains the words 'Nine Planets' (you know, just in case you get carried away making up mnemonics and need help keeping them straight!). Which is what brings me to why I started writing this post in the first place (took me a looong time getting here, didn't it?). I was listlessly surfing channels this morning when I came across some show about the solar system, making me remember this mnemonic. And then, it suddenly dawned on me that poor Pluto's having been stripped of its planetary status renders this gem useless! Wikipedia tells me that the new version goes - My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nachos. I suppose you could use this...but the 'nine planets' was the best part :(
To make matters worse for the generations of students to come, the "new" solar system contains not just the 8 planets but also the 3 dwarves - Eris, Ceres and Pluto. So, the cool new mnemonic ( courtesy Wikipedia) is: My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.
I liked it and was just about to commit it to memory when I scrolled down and discovered that since this new mnemonic was coined (just over a year ago, btw), two more dwarves have been dicovered: Makemake and Haumea. The new(er) mnemonic? It's not coined yet.
I suppose that is just as well.

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