Major System: Retain The Content of Each Page of A Book

The major system, often also called the master system, is a memory technique for memorizing numbers as mental images. The major system is based on the concept that images are significantly more memorable for the human brain than numbers. To use the major system, each digit in a number is replaced with a consonant, which can then be turned into a word by adding vowels between these consonants. A mental image is then created for the word, making it easy to remember.

Creating a Major System

The first step is to develop your own major system for the first 100 numbers. This will allow you to memorize these numbers quickly, as you will already have a mental image associated with them. To create this, you must assign each number from 0 to 99 a suitable word by replacing the respective digits with the following consonants:

Afterward, you insert vowels between the appropriate consonants to form a meaningful word. Vowel sounds, like a, e, i, o, u, h, y and w, can be inserted anywhere in a word with no impact on the number value. For instance, the number 16 becomes the consonants t, d, or th for digit 1 and sch, ch, j or soft g for digit 6. This could create the word “dish”. For the number 52, the consonants l and n can generate words like “line” or “lane”.

In this way, you can create appropriate words for the first 100 numbers and store them as mental images. For example, the following major system is available for you to use, but you may want to think of words that are even easier for you to remember for each number.

0	Hose	50	Louse
1	Hat	51	Lady
2	Hen	52	Lion
3	Home	53	Lime
4	Arrow	54	Lorry
5	Whale	55	Lily
6	Show	56	Leech
7	Cow	57	Leg
8	Hoof	58	Lava
9	Pie	59	Lip
10	Daisy	60	Cheese
11	Tattoo	61	Cheetah
12	Tuna	62	Chin
13	Dome	63	Gem
14	Diary	64	Shrew
15	Tail	65	Chilli
16	Dish	66	Cha-cha
17	Dog	67	Chick
18	Dove	68	Chef
19	Tuba	69	Jeep
20	Nose	70	Goose
21	Net	71	Cat
22	Onion	72	Coin
23	Enemy	73	Game
24	Winery	74	Crow
25	Nail	75	Clay
26	Nacho	76	Cage
27	Neck	77	Cake
28	Knife	78	Cave
29	Honeybee	79	Cube
30	Mouse	80	Vase
31	Meadow	81	Video
32	Moon	82	Fan
33	Mom	83	Ovum
34	Emery	84	Fairy
35	Mole	85	Fool
36	Match	86	Veggie
37	Mug	87	Fig
38	Movie	88	Fife
39	Map	89	Vibe
40	Rice	90	Boss
41	Road	91	Bed
42	Rain	92	Pony
43	Rum	93	Puma
44	Aurora	94	Berry
45	Railway	95	Bell
46	Roach	96	Pouch
47	Rag	97	Bike
48	Roof	98	Beef
49	Rope	99	Pipe

Using the Major System to Memorize Any Number

With this Major System, you can now memorize an unlimited number of digits. You can even store numbers with more than two digits by linking several images together. To do this, you can create an engaging story with the individual images, making it easy to memorize phone numbers, dates, or any other numerical information.

Memorizing Phone Numbers

Phone number: 017768274221
Images: Hose (0), Dog (17), Cage (76), Fan (82), Crow (74), Onion (22), Hat (1)
Story: The person to whom the phone number belongs uses a hose to sprays a dog, which is in a cage, with cool water due to the heat. Then comes a fan with a crow sitting on his shoulder. He feeds the crow with onions that he stuffed into his hat.

Memorizing Dates and Times

Date: Moon landing on 07/20/1969
Images: Cow (7), Nose (20), Tuba (19), Jeep (69)
Story: A cow with a huge ring in its nose plays the tuba while driving a jeep across the moon.

Time: Doctor’s appointment at 12:30
Images: Tuna (12), Mouse (30)
Story: The doctor fills a cup with tuna to feed a mouse.

Memorizing Conversion Formulas for Units

Formula: 1 mile = 1.6 kilometers
Images: Hat (1), Shoe (6)
Story: You wear a fancy hat while walking one kilometer in your new shoes.

Memorizing Long Numbers

To memorize very long numbers, you can also combine the major system with the loci method. To do this, store each pair of digits in your loci route using the corresponding image from the major system. Then, to retrieve the number, simply walk through your route and convert each image back into the two digits at each anchor point.

Using the Major System to Memorize Each Page of a Book

In addition to memorizing numbers, the major system can also be used as a placeholder for mental images, providing a function similar to a route in the loci method. However, the advantage of the major system is that the placeholders are numbered since each placeholder represents a number in the major system.

You can therefore use the major system to memorize each page of a book. First, convert the page number into the corresponding image from your major system. Then create a mental image that visually represents the page’s content. Link the two images of the page number and the content image.

For page numbers with more than two digits, simply combine two images from your major system with the image representing the page content. For example, for page 163, you would take your images for 16 and 3 from the major system. If a page requires multiple images to summarize it, you can create an image for each paragraph and combine these images into a short story.

Then you can go through your major system several times with all the stored images, allowing you to summarize or recount the entire book as a story. You can also refer back to specific content in the book since you know the corresponding page number.

To retain the content of a book over time and still use your major system to store new material, you should write down a keyword for each created image. You could, for instance, note a keyword on each page that describes the summary image for that page. Alternatively, you can create a mind map with all the keywords. This way, you can use your major system to memorize a new book without forgetting the content of the previous one. You’ll also find it easy to re-memorize a book that has been previously memorized with the major system. All you need to do is go through the book or mind map and store the images in the major system again.

Conclusion

The major system is a highly effective memory technique for memorizing numbers in any form. By creating a story, you can link multiple images for numbers together and connect them with the relevant context. This technique can be used, for example, to memorize phone numbers, dates, appointments, and unit conversions. By combining the major system with the loci method, it is possible to store arbitrarily long numbers. Additionally, you can use the system as placeholders for mental images to remember numbered lists. With this technique, you can even memorize an entire book by creating a summary image for each page and storing it in the major system at the corresponding page number. Other applications include memorizing numbered menus, account numbers, or PINs.