Cleaning clogged cutting tools.

[tonyfoale]

Working things out from first principles is certainly preferred but what about the folks on the left side of the curve?

I did mention that I thought that I was in the minority and I know that many people find mnemonics to be useful.

According to a report released in 2014 by the National Science Foundation, 26% of Americans surveyed believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. ............. According to 2011 VTSIOM poll, 32% of Russians believe that the Sun orbits the Earth.

Those are incredible statistics. I wonder about the percentage who think that the earth is flat and that man has not been to the moon. Is this due to a lack of education or a determined effort to avoid any learning? The acts of and the results of learning have been always one of life's greatest pleasures for me and I cannot understand those who have no desire to learn. The worrying thing is that they are also voters.

Then there's the problem of remembering stuff for which there is no applicable scientific theory. For example, the epochs of the the Cenozoic era...

That can be a problem for me which has got a lot worse as I have aged, even though that duration is an almost infinitesimal fraction of this era. Mnemonics generally are no help to me in such matters.