Mnemonics are fine, I suppose, but let’s not forget we do live in an age where anyone could just look these things up at the click of a button if they forgot them… Forced memorization is not a particularly important skill for anyone (at least, not for mathematics). And the natural memorization that comes from using things over and over will, well, come naturally to anyone who uses these things over and over.
Also, as an amusing anecdote, I once TAed for a distinguished math professor who actually couldn’t remember which was cosine and which was sine (he never used them anymore in the math he worked with). He would look it up at the beginning of each semester he had to lecture on calculus.
Surely Owsley would be more memorable than Oscar?
I learned it as:
Some Officers Have Curly Auburn Hair To Offer Attraction.
These all pale compared to the resistor colour code mnemonic: Black Boys Rape Our Young Girls, But Violet Gives Willingly.
Get Some Now.
My 9th grade geometry teacher taught it as the less G-rated:
Some Old Hippy Caught Another Hippy Tripping On Acid
but instructed us to use
Some Old Horse Caught Another Horse Taking Oats Away
if any other teachers were around.
Huh, for resistors, the mnemonic I always used was “black brown red orange yellow green blue violet gray white”. I mean, the middle is in proper rainbow order-- It’s easy.
Bad Beer Rots Our Young Guts But Vodka Goes Well
Okay, I don’t get today’s xkcd.
I mean, it looks like a couple of guys dressed as Obi-Wan (or Qui-Gon) and Darth Maul are trying to get prime spots in line to see The Phantom Menace, but why now?
They’re waiting for the 3d re-release, apparently (coming out next February). But they’re alone because no one else cares about the 3d re-release of The Phantom Menace, because everyone hates The Phantom Menace.
(I misinterpreted it originally myself…)
So’s Violet.
