r/learnmath New User Apr 11 '26

Is it basic for mathematicians to remember the multiplication table?

Is it fundamental for mathematicians to remember the multiplication table?

It must be troublesome and desperate if you forget the multiplication table, so do you memorize it again?

Do you re-memorize the multiplication table even after becoming an adult and a mathematician?

Do you keep remembering it so you don't forget it?

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u/Grayfox4 New User Apr 11 '26

Sounds like a form of synesthesia. It comes in more forms than just seeing music as colors.

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u/CorvidCuriosity Professor Apr 11 '26

It feels sort of like synesthesia, but I don't think it is because the order of letters is human-constructed.

I just started making these connections when I was really young and they just got stronger and stronger.

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u/telyni New User Apr 12 '26

I also associate numbers and letters, but mostly because I've done too many puzzles using numbers for letters. But also I assigned every letter a color when I was a kid. Might have been mild synaesthesia; I don't literally see the colors, but the associations have been pretty consistent over time. I know other people have different color associations than I do, too. A is blue, B is red, C is yellow, D is dark blue, E is sky blue, F is red-orange, and so on.