The following information was taken from a post on the Wizards
    boards on America Online on June 29th, 1997 by one Shytok
                             OfGhul

 As most people know, when a monster is killed, an adventurer gains an amount
  of field experience that is stored in his or her brain and is absorbed over time.
 There is, however, a maximum amount of experience that a character may store
 at one time. The experience storage capacity of a character is a constant value:

            Capacity = 800 + LO statistic + DI statistic

This maximum is simply a ceiling. What this means is that if you have a 75 Logic
and a 95 Discipline, you will be able to store up to 970 field experience points at
a time. If you currently have 935 experience points in your experience "bucket"
and kill a creature that would have netted you 150 experience points, you will
only gain 35 points and have refilled your bucket; 115 points will have been lost
in the ether.

The experience you have stored is then absorbed in discrete packets once every
minute (or so) at what have become known as experience pulses. Although a
person cannot discern the exact amount of experience yet unabsorbed in his or
her mind, by taking an experience reading, one can get a general,
non-quantitative description of one’s state of mind. The names of these
"classifications" and what they signify are as follows:

             Classification
                               % of total Capacity
                 Must Rest
                                       90-100
                   Numb
                                        75-90
              Becoming Numb
                                        62-75
                 Muddled
                                        50-62
                   Clear
                                        25-50
               Fresh and Clear
                                        0-25
               Clear as a bell
                                          0
 

  (Note: These numbers are Sylvendale’s and I have not checked them. If they are off, which is
                        unlikely, yell at him. <g>).

Although one can still absorb field experience in the Must Rest state of mind,
the amount absorbed, barring intervention from the gods, cannot exceed your
maximum.

Now comes the complicated part. The rate at which your experience will be
converted from stored field experience to earned "true" experience is based
upon a number of things. The most significant distinction for most people is
whether she or he is on an area where experience absorption is accelerated, also
know as an experience node. On a node, the amount of experience a person will
absorb per pulse is.

            INT(Amount in Bucket/(50-INT(Level/6))+12

         where the function "INT" means to round down to the nearest integer.

To determine your own rate, begin by finding your divisor, which is
50-INT(Level/6). This means that your divisor will be 50 for levels 0-5, 49 for
levels 6-11, 48 for levels 12-17, etc. You then divide this number into the
current amount in your bucket and chop off the decimal.

For example, a 26th level Human Wizard with a Logic of 71, an Intelligence of
65, and a Discipline of 100 will have a storage capacity of 971. His divisor will be
46, so if he is "super-fried" on a node, he will absorb INT(971/46) + 12 = 33
experience points on his first pulse. His next pulse will be INT(931/46) + 12 =
32 experience points.

Off of a node, the amount of experience that a person will absorb is.

 INT(Noded value * (50 + Intelligence Bonus + Logic Bonus) / 100)

You find your own rate by first determining your modifier, which is (50 +
Intelligence Bonus + Logic Bonus) / 100. This modifier cannot be greater than
one, meaning that even a Halfling Wizard with a 100 in both the Intelligence and
Logic statistic will not absorb more off of a node than on. You then multiply this
modifier by the amount you would have absorbed if you were on a node (see the
above formula) and round down to the nearest decimal.

Taking our HumanWizard from above, if he were to move from the node to a
non-node still with a full capacity mind.(if, say, he were pushed off the ledge in
Shadow Valley by a Dark Elf Sorcerer), he would need to compute his modifier,
which is: (50 + IN bonus + LO bonus) / 100 = (50 + 12 + 15) / 100 = .77. Now, he
would compute the amount he would have absorbed if he were still safely on a
node (and not at the bottom of the abyss, being eaten by night hounds), which is
INT(971/46) + 12 = 33. Multiply this 33 by the .77 factor and round down to get
25, the amount he will absorb.

This discovery has a great number of implications for stat placement in the
future. For example, despite a recent statement in the Wizard folder that Logic
is a largely useless statistic, Logic is actually very important. It is the biggest
statistical factor in determining experience absorption since it helps determine
both the maximum amount of field experience one can store and the rate at
which that experience can be absorbed. Future generations may choose to give
more attention to the Logic statistic than we have in the past.

However, the single greatest factor for experience absorption is level. Level, it
seems, determines the maximum rate at which a character can absorb
experience on a node, which in turn determines the non-noded rate. Taken to its
logical conclusion, a 275th level character with a steady supply of creatures to
kill will actually reach the next level faster than a second level character, even
though she will need 5 times the experience to progress, because she will be
able to absorb 200 experience points per pulse whereas the 2nd level character,
even with maximum Discipline and Logic, will only absorb 32 per pulse.

This is all presuming that this can be taken to its logical conclusion, and that
remains to be seen. The equations you see above have been tested rigorously
for characters in the 0-35 range and have held true without exception. It may be,
however, that these equations do not hold true for higher levels.