hotel Dominiq

Hack #7. Visit the Hotel Dominic

Expand the basic Dominic System list of 100 to hold 10,000 items or more of information.

You might need to memorize a table or list with more than 100 elements, such as the periodic table of elements, but find that you can't do it with only the 100 numbered items of the Dominic System [Hack #6]. You could use a memory journey [Hack #3], but how are you going to remember that element 52 is tellurium without visiting the 51 previous rooms first?

This memory hack, which I call the Hotel Dominic (in honor of Dominic O'Brien, the inventor of the Dominic System of mnemonics upon which it's based), is both random access (like a CD, as opposed to a cassette tape) and indexed by number, making it ideal for remembering long, numbered lists and tables, or many smaller lists, or both: up to 10,000 basic items. Each basic item can, in effect, be elaborated with nooks and crannies [Hack #4], creating the potential for many more than 10,000 items.

In Action

You can think of the Hotel Dominic as a building with 100 floors, numbered from 00 to 99, each containing 100 rooms, also numbered from 00 to 99. In short, it's like a grid with 100 rows and 100 columns. The first room on Floor 95 would thus be numbered 9500. The next room along the hall would be 9501, then 9502, and so on.Figure 1-2 shows the first few rooms from the bottom floors of the Hotel Dominic, starting with the first floor, Floor 00. The hotel continues both up and to the right.

Figure 1-2. A few rooms in the Hotel Dominic

If you need to memorize a list with more than 100 numbered items, allocate an empty section of the matrix to that list. For example, to memorize the periodic table of elements, you could arbitrarily allocate rooms 8001 to 8116. Room 8001 would contain information about the first element, hydrogen, and 8116 would contain information about the element with the highest known atomic number, ununhexium (element 116).¹

If you have memorized the 100 people/action pegs of the Dominic System, you already have everything you need to memorize the 10,000 rooms of the hotel. Room 8001 in the Hotel Dominic would be represented by whatever combination of person and action you have designated for HOOA. Four-digit numbers are easily memorized with the Dominic System, so all you need to do is associate hydrogen with the Dominic mnemonic for this number.²

In Real Life

Here's an example of how to memorize the first element in the periodic table, hydrogen.

As mentioned in the previous section, place hydrogen in Room 8001 of the Hotel Dominic (in other words, Floor 80, Room 01). The number 80, as mentioned in "Use the Dominic System" [Hack #6], is represented by Santa Claus (80 = HO, which reminds us of Santa's HO, HO, HO). In my personal list, 01 is that guy on the oatmeal box (01 = OA = oats), and his characteristic action is offering a bowl of oatmeal. Thus, 8001 is represented by Santa Claus offering me a bowl of oatmeal.

To link hydrogen to the picture, I imagine that the oatmeal is bubbling, and little bubbles of hydrogen gas are escaping from it and bursting into flame. It's then easy to remember other information about the element, such as its chemical symbol, H. I visualize a shiny H on Santa's forehead, as on the forehead of the "holographic" character Rimmer in the TV series Red Dwarf. I imagine that the shiny H reflects the flames from the exploding hydrogen bubbles, making it vivid and easier to remember.

Other features of the character, the character's action, and the room could be used to store other information about hydrogen, such as its atomic weight (1.008) and the year it was discovered (1766), both of which are four-digit numbers and also easily encoded with the Dominic System.

It's not as easy as playing foosball or watching a DVD, and experience shows that you'll need to refresh your memory periodically. However, "Dominate Your Memory" [Hack #8] provides a script to print up chunks of your personal memory hotel for easy review, and if you're studying for your chemistry exam or going on Jeopardy!, a mnemonic technique like the Hotel Dominic beats rote drill techniques and makes them cry.

TIP

You can use the Hotel Dominic to memorize lists shorter than 100 items, too. For instance, you can tuck the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which has 30 articles) into rooms 8171–8200 and still leave plenty of room for new chemical elements to be discovered.

End Notes

1. Periodic Table Navigator. WebElements. http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/periodic-table.
2. This is similar to the way you would use Tony Buzan's SEM³ ( Self-Enhancing Master Memory Matrix) system to memorize the periodic table. In fact, the Hotel Dominic is an attempt to do with the Dominic System what Buzan has done with the Major System [Hack #5] in SEM³: http://www.ludism.org/mentat/SemCubed. However, the Hotel Dominic is nonproprietary and arguably easier to use.

See Also

• For more information on SEM³, consult Tony Buzan's books, especially Master Your Memory.

Hack #8. Dominate Your Memory

Use a Perl script to formulate items that match the 10,000 room numbers of the Hotel Dominic. Then, print the list as an aid for memorization and review.

"Visit the Hotel Dominic" [Hack #7] mentions a Perl script that will make memorizing large chunks of information with the Hotel Dominic method much easier and will also help you refresh your memory periodically. This hack contains that script.

With this new script, dominate, you will be able to print out as large a swath of the Hotel Dominic as you wish—hundreds or thousands of rooms—and mark it up with a pen or pencil, assigning each item you want to remember to a room. Then you will be able to review your marked-up version of the hotel at leisure and commit the items to memory.

The Code

Place the following Perl script in a text file called dominate:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

$in_file = $ARGV[0];
$domstart = $ARGV[1];
$domend = $ARGV[2];

if ($domstart > $domend)
{
    die "Start number not less than or equal to end number\\n";
}

open (IN_FILE, "< ./$in_file")
    or die "Couldn't open input file: $!\\n";

$index = 0;
while (defined ($line = <IN_FILE>)) 
{
    $line =~ /([^;]*)\\:([^;\\n]*)/g;
    $domarray[$index][0] = $1;
    $domarray[$index][1] = $2;
    $index++;
}

close IN_FILE;

for ($domnum = $domstart; $domnum < = $domend; $domnum++)
{
    $domstring = sprintf "04.0d", $domnum;
  print "$domstring: ";
    $domstring =~ /(\\d\\d)(\\d\\d)/g;
    print "$domarray[$1][0]\\,$domarray[$2][1]\\n\\n";
}

You will need to create your own datafile that contains your personal characters and actions that match the numbers in the Dominic System [Hack #6]. It must start with the character and action for 00 and continue through the character and action for 99. Each line must contain the character name, followed by a colon, then a space, and then the character's typical action. Colons must be used only to separate characters and actions; they cannot appear anywhere else in the file. If your text editor has a line number feature, you can use it to keep track of where you are in the file, such as line 1, which should contain the mnemonic for 00, or line 100, which should contain the mnemonic for 99.

Here are the last 29 lines of my dominate datafile, dominic.dat, corresponding to items 71–99:

$ tail -29 dominic.dat

Ray Charles: playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")
George W. Bush: clearing brush in Crawford, TX
Graham Chapman: throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from _The Life of 
Brian_)
Gandhi: spinning on a wheel
General Electric (a robot in uniform): saluting
Smeagol-Gollum (_The Lord of the Rings_): falling into lava with the One Ring
Gandalf the Grey (_The Lord of the Rings_): barring the way with staff
George Harrison: tapping foot and playing guitar
Ignatius Loyola: flogging himself (iGNatius)
Santa Claus: laughing until belly shakes (HO HO HO!)
Julia Sweeney: dressing gender-ambiguously (_God Said HA!_)
Humphrey Bogart: pulling the brim of his hat low
Hagbard Celine (_Illuminatus!_): piloting golden submarine
Howard Dean: whooping
Isaac Newton (long white wig): releasing helium balloons (Newtonmas, HE HE HE!)
Homer Simpson (_The Simpsons_): gobbling donuts
Mercury (Greek god): flying with winged sandals (Hg = chemical symbol for mercury)
Hermann Hesse (author of _The Glass Bead Game_): telling beads
Han Solo (_Star Wars_): firing blaster
Dr. No: manipulating controls in his secret headquarters
Neil Armstrong: stepping onto Moon
Norman Bates: stabbing someone repeatedly
David Sedaris (author): chasing rolling coins down the street (North Carolina)
Nick Danger (Firesign Theatre, Phil Proctor): walking into a red sandstone building (oof!)
Neelix (_Star Trek_): cooking alien food
Hiro Protagonist (_Snow Crash_): cutting someone to bits with a katana (Neal Stephenson, 
author)
Morpheus (_The Sandman_): strewing sand (Neil Gaiman, author)
Nathaniel Hawthorne: tearing open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter
Nick Nolte: falling into pool (scene from _Down and Out in Beverly Hills_)

Running the Hack

In "Visit the Hotel Dominic" [Hack #7], I suggested memorizing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights¹ by placing it after the periodic table of elements in the Hotel Dominic. That hack placed the periodic table of elements in the hotel running from 8001 to 8170, with the 30 articles of the declaration running from rooms 8171 to 8200.

However, since Santa (80 = HO!) is easier for most people to visualize than Julia Sweeney (81 = HA!), for purposes of illustration only, we'll place the 30 articles in rooms 8071 to 8100. (Of course, you can place them anywhere you wish.)

TIP

See the "How to Run the Programming Hacks" section of the Preface if you need general instructions on running Perl scripts.

If you have Perl installed on your system, to print out the "inhabitants" of these 30 rooms, save the dominatescript and the dominic.dat file in the same directory, and then run dominate by typing the following command within that directory. The first argument should be the name of the datafile (in this case, dominic.dat), the second argument should be the starting room (8071), and the third argument should be the ending room (8100):

perl dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100

If you're on a Linux or Unix system, you might also be able to use the following shortcut:

./dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100

The following is a set of results from an actual dominate run:

$ ./dominate dominic.dat 8071 8100

8071: Santa Claus, playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")
8072: Santa Claus, clearing brush in Crawford, TX
8073: Santa Claus, throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from_The Life of Brian_)
8074: Santa Claus, spinning on a wheel
8075: Santa Claus, saluting
8076: Santa Claus, falling into lava with the One Ring
8077: Santa Claus, barring the way with staff
8078: Santa Claus, tapping foot and playing guitar
8079: Santa Claus, flogging himself (iGNatius)
8080: Santa Claus, laughing until belly shakes (HO HO HO!)
8081: Santa Claus, dressing gender-ambiguously (_God Said HA!_)
8082: Santa Claus, pulling the brim of his hat low
8083: Santa Claus, piloting golden submarine
8084: Santa Claus, whooping
8085: Santa Claus, releasing helium balloons (Newtonmas, HE HE HE!)
8086: Santa Claus, gobbling donuts
8087: Santa Claus, flying with winged sandals (Hg = chemical symbol for mercury)
8088: Santa Claus, telling beads
8089: Santa Claus, firing blaster
8090: Santa Claus, manipulating controls in his secret headquarters
8091: Santa Claus, stepping onto Moon
8092: Santa Claus, stabbing someone repeatedly
8093: Santa Claus, chasing rolling coins down the street (North Carolina)
8094: Santa Claus, walking into a red sandstone building (oof!)
8095: Santa Claus, cooking alien food
8096: Santa Claus, cutting someone to bits with a katana 
(Neal Stephenson, author)
8097: Santa Claus, strewing sand (Neil Gaiman, author)
8098: Santa Claus, tearing open his shirt to reveal a scarlet letter
8099: Santa Claus, falling into pool (scene from _Down and Out in Beverly Hills_)
8100: Julia Sweeney, knocking something over ("Oh Oh!")

Your dominate script will print a double-spaced list so that you have room to annotate it by hand.

In Real Life

To remember the first five articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you might annotate them as follows, with a detailed visualization and a paraphrase of the relevant article:

8071: Santa Claus, playing piano and singing ("GeorgiA")

Two identical Santas sit side by side on a piano bench, each playing half the piano and singing in chorus. (Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal, and they should act in a spirit of brotherhood.)

8072: Santa Claus, clearing brush in Crawford, Texas

Santa is clearing brush in Crawford, knocking down old fences dividing people. (Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms in the Declaration, without any kind of distinction.)

8073: Santa Claus, throwing open windows and exposing himself (scene from The Life of Brian)

Santa throws open his windows and exposes himself to a death squad. Rat-a-tat-tat! He slams the windows shut. Whew! The windows are armored. (Article 3: Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person.)

8074: Santa Claus, spinning on a wheel

Santa is chained to a spinning wheel and forced to spin, but he breaks his chains triumphantly. (Article 4: No one shall be held in slavery.)

8075: Santa Claus, saluting

Santa is being tortured on the rack; one of his elves frees him, and he salutes his liberator. (Article 5: No one shall be tortured or subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.)

End Notes

1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html .

See Also

• The dominate script will also work for Tony Buzan's Major-System-based SEM³ if you feed it the right data. For more information on SEM³, consult Tony Buzan's books, especially Master Your Memory (David & Charles).

• Hack #9. Memorize Numbers with Carroll's Couplets

  You can use a rhyming system of mnemonics by Lewis Carroll, author of the immortal "Alice" books and much nonsense poetry, to remember dates, phone numbers, and other numeric data.
  In the 1870s, Lewis Carroll devised a mnemonic system for numbers that he called the Memoria Technica, after an earlier system. Carroll's system is little remembered by us postmoderns. Like today's more common Major System [Hack #5], it relies on converting numbers into consonants and filling them with vowels to make words; unlike the Major System, it uses rhyming couplets to help you remember the words that are created, instead of simply having you remember them "naked," and in this sense it is an advance on the former.

  TIP

  If you already know the Major System consonants, you could probably substitute them for Carroll's without too much trouble.

  In Action

  First, you need to memorize the number-to-consonant conversions shown in Table 1-5, which provides mnemonics for remembering the mnemonics.

  Table 1-5. Number-to-consonant conversions

  Number	First consonant	Second consonant	Mnemonic
  1	B	C	First two consonants in alphabet
  2	D	W	Duo; tWo
  3	T	J	Tres (Spanish); see following note for an explanation for J
  4	F	Q	Four; Quattuor (Latin)
  5	L	V	L stands for 50; V stands for 5 (Roman numerals)
  6	S	X	SiX
  7	P	M	sePteM (Latin)
  8	H	K	Huit (French); oKto (Greek)
  9	N	G	NiNe; g looks like 9
  0	Z	R	ZeRo

  TIP

  Carroll said his intent was to provide one common and one uncommon consonant for each number. He was a polyglot, so many of the metamnemonics involve number words in other languages; however, the only one that really doesn't make any sense is J for 3. Carroll said it was the only consonant left after he filled in the rest of the table.

  The next step is to convert the numbers you are trying to remember to a word or words and to make them the last part of a rhyming couplet. Carroll gives the following example to remember 1492, the year Columbus first came to America.

  First, drop the 1 from 1492; it's obvious Columbus didn't sail in 492 or 2492.

  Next, convert 492 to a word using either of the pair of letters associated with each digit, like this:

  As it happens, the letters in the second row (FND) will form the word found nicely, but some other combination might have been used, such as QND for queened (as in "The pawn was queened when it reached the eighth row").

  Carroll writes:

  The poetic faculty must now be brought into play, and the following couplet will soon be evolved:—

  "Columbus sailed the world around,

  Until America was F O U N D."¹

  Presto! Convert FOUND back to FND by extracting the vowels; then convert that to 492, and you have it.

  In Real Life

  Carroll makes remembering numbers with rhyming couplets seem as easy as falling off a bicycle (they say you never forget how). But Carroll was an Oxford don, a mathematician, and a gifted poet. How easy is it for us to "bring our poetic faculties into play?"

  I will now demonstrate the use of the method to remember the phone numbers of Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon (my favorite bookstore; visit it if you get a chance) and the Seattle branch of Ikea (where I do have to go periodically).

  The phone number for Powell's City of Books is (800) 878-7323. We'll drop the toll-free 800 area code as being obvious, just as Carroll did with the 1 in 1492. That leaves 878-7323. Using the mnemonics shown in Table 1-5, we can convert the phone number to letters, like this:

  From these pairs of letters, we choose seven consonants that can form words:

  H M K M T W T

  And then the words themselves:

  HAMMOCK MY TWIT

  Note that I'm treating MM as a single 7 and CK as just K. I learned this consonant-melding trick from the Major System [Hack #5]; Carroll doesn't mention it. If you really do have a number with a double digit, such as 77 (MM), in it, either put a vowel between the consonants you use (as with MOM) or use two separate consonants (such as MP, as in lump).

  Also, note that I had half an idea of what the final rhyme would look like when I selected the letters; as soon as I saw HMK, I thought of myself coming home from Powell's with an armload of books and lying down in a hammock to read them. The final result?

  Arms full of books, but you don't mind a bit?

  Lie down and read in the HAMMOCK, MY TWIT!

  Now, for the Ikea Seattle store, whose phone number is (425) 656-2980. Again, I can omit the area code, because I know where the store is and what its area code is likely to be. That leaves me with 656-2980. Again, using the mnemonics shown in Table 1-5, we can convert to letters, as shown here:

  From these pairs of letters, I select:

  S V S W N K R

  SAVES A WANKER

  I thought about rhyming wanker with tanker, anchor, and Angkor—all suggestive of the global reach of Inter IKEA Systems BV—but all the couplets I came up with were too long. Eventually, though, I devised this ditty:

  Look at all the cash and rancor

  That Ikea SAVES A WANKER!

  Rude, eh? Don't worry; that makes it easier to remember.

  Neither of these two rhymes took longer than a few minutes to create. However, they have stuck in my memory, suggesting that you use this method for data that's important to you, that you want to retain, and that you don't mind spending a little time learning. Carroll himself used his system to remember dates associated with various Oxford colleges, among other things; he would trot out the dates when showing guests around Oxford. Apparently, he used it to memorize logarithms as well.

  A similar principle is at work in the mnemonic parody technique [Hack #10], which you can use to remember many more kinds of information than numbers.

  End Notes

  1. Collingwood, Stuart Dodgson. The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/4/8/11483/11483-h/11483-h.htm . (This biography by his nephew includesMemoria Technica material in Chapter 7.)

  See Also

  • Facsimile of a handwritten Memoria Technica monograph by Carroll (http://electricpen.org/CarrollMemoriaTechnica1.jpg).
  • Takahashi, Hisako. "Memoria Technica Japonica—A Study of Mnemonics" (http://users.lk.net/~stepanov/mnemo/takahae.html).

    Hack #10. Tune In to Your Memory

    Turn that song stuck in your head into a powerful tool to help you remember what you learn! This hack works especially well if you have a list of things to memorize.
    It's common for people to hear a particularly catchy tune and hum it in their head for hours, or sometimes days. While this phenomenon can be annoying, it can also be used as a great tool for memorizing information. Making up a song or poem about a topic can be an extremely effective way to remember dates, lists of items, events and stories, and many other things.
    This hack works in three ways to stick information in your mind. First, hanging information on a melody or rhyme scheme that you already know helps piggyback new information on information that you've already acquired. Second, remembering the rhythm of a tune or one or two rhyming lines can help bootstrap your memory; bringing one to mind will often bring up the rest of the associated information. Third, the active process of fitting the information into the tune causes you to concentrate on the information and turn it over in your mind, which also helps it to stick there.
    There are a few different types of learning songs, and some may work better than others, depending on your own mental makeup or the information you're trying to memorize.
    A parody is a song written using an existing song's tune, often satirizing or making fun of something. The parody might or might not play on the theme of the original song, but the new words often follow a rhyme or phonetic scheme similar to the original lyrics. They are also generally written based on a popular song rather than a folk or traditional tune. Matching the information you're trying to memorize to a song you already know, by theme or some other association, can further help you to remember the information.
    If you need to learn a story, such as an event in history, putting the story to music with a story song will help you remember it. This hack has been used by people around the world for thousands of years, of course. Story songs are often similar to parodies, but may be more freewheeling and nonsatirical, and will probably use an original tune or traditional/folk tune.
    List songs simply put a series of information to music or rhythm. They can be tricky to learn, depending on your list, but they can also be incredibly effective. List songs may take some time to memorize, but you won't soon forget them, and they are often faster to write than the other types. The keys to writing and learning a list song are rhyme and repetition.

    In Action

    To write a parody, begin with a topic you want to remember. Next, choose a popular song you know well and remember easily, or one that sounds like a word in your topic. This is best if you can transform the original lyrics into lyrics about your topic by changing only a few choice words. For example, if you're writing a song about baboons, pick an original song about a balloon, saloon, or something else that rhymes. How about "Up, up, and away, with my beautiful baboon"? Making humorous or absurd mental images makes things easier to remember, and when you're writing something funny, writing is a lot more fun. Often, once you start, the lyrics fall into place and you're laughing as you think of the next line. Continue working your information or story into the song until you get everything in, adding more verses if necessary.

    Writing a story song to an original tune takes a certain kind of talent that the average person may or may not feel comfortable with. It's perfectly OK to use a traditional song here; it's also fine if your original melody isn't award-worthy, as long as you can remember it. If you choose a folk tune, you can either use the original lyrics as a base, as you would with a parody, or write your own from scratch. If you are using an original tune, you will have no base lyrics to work from, but coming up with your own lyrics can be half the fun. It can also make the memory stronger if you take time to craft all of the lyrics. Take the time to make it rhyme, too; rhyme and meter (meter is the rhythm of the words, as in poetry) are important to any song and will certainly help embed it into your mind. (Compare Lewis Carroll's couplets [Hack #9], which use a similar principle.)

    List songs are often the easiest to compose. First, write out a list of information you'd like to memorize. This will give you a ready list when you need to pick the right word to rhyme or fit the meter. Next, find a tune that has either verses or repetitive sections you can repeat enough times to include your entire list. Start to sing the tune for your chosen song, and instead of the words, sing the list. You will probably have to add connecting words here and there and maybe at the end of lines to help the rhyme. If you can make the words on your list fit into the rhyme, however, it's more powerful. Making the list alphabetical can help you remember what comes next in the song. This works especially well if you have at least one word on your list for most letters of the alphabet (if not every one), such as the names of the states. You can also group information by geography (if you're memorizing countries in Africa, for example) or any other way that makes sense; this will aid your memory, too.

    In all cases, physically writing or typing your work will help stick the information in your mind. Also, the more familiar your framework song or poem is, the easier it will be to remember its new words.

    In Real Life

    Parodies are particularly effective for remembering a group of related information or a story. The following parody, written by teenage girls, is not a mnemonic, but it's a good example of how to write a parody. "Negligee" is the story of a woman who buys an unfortunate piece of lingerie. It uses the tune to the Beatles' "Yesterday."

    If you were a child with access to a television in the '70s or '80s, you are probably familiar with Schoolhouse Rock. The producers of these animated shorts, which were shown between cartoons on network TV Saturday morning programming, knew well the teaching power of story songs. These songs, with accompanying animation, taught science, math, history, and English language skills to original catchy tunes, from "Conjunction Junction" to "My Hero Zero" to "The Preamble" (which set the preamble of the United States Constitution to music). Many other children's TV shows have also used this technique, notably Sesame Street; its efficacy is well documented.

    The contemporary band They Might Be Giants have recorded many story songs that teach topics including mammals, James K. Polk (the 11th president of the United States), and the sun. Their most recent contribution is an album to help kids learn the alphabet, called Here Come the ABCs. There are songs about the letters themselves, such as "E Eats Everything," and songs about the alphabet in general, such as "Alphabet of Nations" and "Who Put the Alphabet in Alphabetical Order?"

    The following example was recorded by They Might Be Giants and released as a single. Both of the core members of this band learned this song as kids from an album put out by Singing Science Records and remembered it all through their lives. When they discovered they both knew it, they wanted to record and perform it. It was an underground hit. These are the first few lines from "Why Does the Sun Shine?":

    The Sun is a mass of incandescent gas,

    A gigantic nuclear furnace!

    Where hydrogen is made into helium

    At a temperature of millions of degrees.

    List songs have been recorded by many artists over the years, but all serve a similar purpose: to remember a long list that would otherwise be nearly impossible. List songs exist for memorizing the names of all the countries on Earth, the states of the U.S. and their capitals, and even the chemical elements. In "The Elements," comedian and MIT professor Tom Lehrer cheerily lists every name on the periodic table of elements to the tune of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance. Much like memorizing the digits of π, memorizing "The Elements" is a geek rite of passage.

    Probably inspired by this, I wrote a song as a freshman in high school to teach my science class about the alkaline and alkali earth metals from the periodic table. Using little facts I found during my research, I wove them into the lyrics, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." That was more than 15 years ago, and I can still remember it:

    Strontium turns the flame bright red

    So does rubidium

    Potassium turns the flame bright blue

    And cesium does too!

    Calcium is bright orange

    Barium is green

    Sodium is very bright and so it can be seen.

    Radium is radioactive—

    It gives you weird diseases.

    Calcium is found in milk

    And most of all hard cheeses...

    See Also

    • Unofficial Singing Science Records home page; http://www.acme.com/jef/science_songs.
    • Ask MetaFilter thread on catchy educational songs; http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/18731.

    Meredith Hale