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Comment by dxbydt | Hacker News Reader

In Indian high schools, you are supposed to memorize a ton of "useless" shit like atomic weights of 50+ elements in the periodic table, logs upto 20, exponentials, factorials, avogardo constant & tons of physics constants like g and speed of light & sound & diffraction constants & the like. So from the age of 12,I happen to know that log 5 is 0.7 Ergo, log(125^100) = 300log(5) = 210, hence 210 digits in 125^100.

But I do wonder - do schoolkids these days memorize this trivia or do they just reach for a calculator/wikipedia ?

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Current high schooler in the US here. I feel that today the trend is definitely more towards looking things up as opposed to memorizing them. For example, in my chemistry class, we always got a periodic table (with weights) and were given things like Planck's constant. We did, however, have to memorize some of the more basic ones such as speed of light and Avogadro's number. With regards to math, all tests involving more than trivial amounts of math you get a calculator, so I have never even thought of memorizing logs or exponents.

Wasn't it Einstein who said something along the lines of "Don't memorize anything you can look up?"

I believe this was Henry Ford

"I don't know the answers because I do not need to clutter my head with the answers you seek. I hire smart young people from your schools who have memorized information(like the indians) that you think is intelligence. My job is to keep my head clear of such clutter and trivial facts so that I can think" Henry Ford

I looked it up. It was Einstein. :)

Or at least, it's attributed to Einstein. It's a common enough sentiment, though, I'm sure I've independently said similar things myself.

On the other hand, it can easily be taken too far. Sometimes a random factoid isn't just a random factoid, it's part of the scaffolding on which you hang your knowledge. If you have to go to your periodic table to look up things like "Carbon" and "Hydrogen" you're never gonna have an intuitive understanding of chemistry.

I would argue that memorization for a lot of 'useless' constants is in fact, useless. We had the same curriculum in Romania during the communist era, where Ceausescu forced everyone to memorize as many trigonometric functions as possible and physics constants.

I personally don't see the need for memorizing items I will not use more than once. It clogs my brain and impedes my memory.

Try wolfram alpha/siri for that one. No way they'd figure out how to do it on a calculator.

Having said that I kind of envy your Indian schooling, that's some important information right there, and I've learned a lot of it over time for my own projects.

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