Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Aide de memoire

There are different kinds of memory.

Some people have a good memory for names (I am not one of those people). Some people have a good memory for processes and how things work and fit together (I am more one of these people).

Away from this there is magnetic memory. Whereby we can magnetise (I'm English, get over it) something by means of induction and then at a later time retrieve the information allowing the patterns in the magnetised material to induce a current.

There is a memory that some plastics can possess so if the plastic is heated it will return to an earlier shape.

And then there is salt.

The more literal amongst you might be wondering what it is that I am about to reveal about salt memory. Could it be connected to silicon dating (whereby the distortion of the electron shells of silicon can date when the fire of which said silicon was engulfed raged millennia ago)? No. No it is not that. Could it be something about impurities in the salt? No. No it is not that. Could it possibly be something to do with the larger scale aspects of crystal formation and the rates of formation and the shapes that they form? OK, if you asked that then I must admit that I hadn't thought about it until I typed it out. Possibly. But it's not what I'm talking about here so no. No it is not that.

It is, I suppose, not really a memory that salt itself possesses but rather than it can remind one of something.

The salt in question reminded me that I have a paper cut on my right hand. It also, shortly after this, reminded me that I swear. A lot.

Salt memory.

Balls*.

*I did not actually say "balls" but do not feel the need to mention what I actually said. I've calmed down a bit since then.

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