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Two Math Shortcuts

Blogs > SkY
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Sky
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
Jordan812 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-02-21 06:33:48
February 21 2009 05:09 GMT
#1
Though I'd like to have a better library of these shortcuts in my head, I'd rather share the ones I know of.

The first one I found by reading "Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman". In it he's dumbstruck by a mathematician that almost instantly finds the exact answer to a large number squared.

50^2 = 2500

Find number around 50 -> Find the difference from that number and 50 -> Multiply that difference by 100 and either subtract (if the number was lower than 50) or add (if the number was over 50) to or from 2500. From that total, square the difference and also add that.

The example we can use is... 44!

Find the difference of 44 and 50.
50-44 = 6

Multiply that difference by 100 and subtract from 2500
2500 - 600 = 1900

Then square the difference and also add that to your amount.
6^2 = 36 + 1900

44^2 = 1936

This trick works quite well until a point where you have to square slightly larger numbers to get your answer, in which point the exercise becomes moot.


-------------------------------------------------------------
This one I happened to stumble upon.

It might be handy if you've misplaced your calculator and have to drill out some quick answers.




-------------------------------------------------------------


...jumping into cold water whenever I get the chance.
Azrael1111
Profile Joined July 2008
United States550 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-02-21 05:24:34
February 21 2009 05:18 GMT
#2
10^2=100

10-9=1

1*100=100

100-100=0

1^1=1

0+1=1

Am I missing something? Why does your first trick work?

The way I've always done multiplication in my head is to break it down into a distributive fashion.

So for 44^2 I would break it down to 40^2+(4+4)40+4*4=N
1600+8(40)+16=N
1600+320+16=N
1936=N

Cambium
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
United States16368 Posts
February 21 2009 05:23 GMT
#3
On February 21 2009 14:18 Azrael1111 wrote:
10^2=100

10-9=1

1*100=100

100-100=0

1^1=1

0+1=1

Am I missing something? Why does your first trick work?


It's simple... he didn't explain it at all -_-;;

50 ^ 2 = 2500

44 ^ 2 = ?

44 = 50 - 6

44 ^ 2 = (50 - 6 )^2 = 50^2 - 6 * 50 * 2 + 6^2 = 2500 - 6*100 + 36
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Binky1842
Profile Blog Joined July 2004
United States2599 Posts
February 21 2009 05:26 GMT
#4
reminds me of this guy:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/arthur_benjamin_does_mathemagic.html
"The zoo could not confirm that Binky was the attacker, but only Binky had blood on his face following the incident"
Hypnosis
Profile Blog Joined October 2007
United States2061 Posts
February 21 2009 05:27 GMT
#5
nAX^n-1 use it
Science without religion is lame, Religion without science is blind
fusionsdf
Profile Blog Joined June 2006
Canada15390 Posts
February 21 2009 05:30 GMT
#6
for 100 you have to use a slightly different formula
SKT_Best: "I actually chose Protoss because it was so hard for me to defeat Protoss as a Terran. When I first started Brood War, my main race was Terran."
JeeJee
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Canada5652 Posts
February 21 2009 05:31 GMT
#7
here's a random trick to multiply 2 2digit numbers by each other
no idea why you would ever need this but anyway

say 37 * 84
hard to do your head, unless
8*3=24
7*4=28
3*4+7*8=12+56=68
that takes just a few seconds doesn't it? (well it should anyway)

then we have
24(2)8 with a 68 in between, add em up
gives us 3108!

actually this is the worst example i could've thought of since there's 2 1s to be carried. still, works better than my previous approaches (which would ordinarily be breaking it down to something like 37*80+37*4 = 2400+560 + 120+28 = 2960+148=3108.. which is harder i think)
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24779 Posts
February 21 2009 05:34 GMT
#8
I find the long multiplication in the video is usually quicker than the method with the lines (especially if the digits are large numbers like 7-9)
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
ketomai
Profile Joined June 2007
United States2789 Posts
February 21 2009 05:36 GMT
#9
An even more random trick: squaring any number ending in 5

take all the numbers besides the last one (5) and multiply it by the number above it, then add 25 to the end.

ex: 125^2

12 * 13 = 156

125^2 = 15625

Don't know why this particular one came to mind ~_~.

JeeJee
Profile Blog Joined July 2003
Canada5652 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-02-21 05:50:40
February 21 2009 05:48 GMT
#10
this is probably the most useless thing you could ever know, but anyway: how to figure out an integer cube root of a # b/w 1 and 1,000,000 (assuming of course, that it has one)

first you'll have to be familiar with cubes from 1 to 10 if you're not already
1=1
2=8
3=27
4=64
5=125
6=216
7=343
8=512
9=729
10=1000

say someone gives you a number, 474,552. now, you know that the number that was cubed was a 2 digit number.
the first digit is a 7 because 343<474<512
the last digit is an 8 because the 474,552 ends on a 2, and so does 8^3.
hence, cube root of 474,552 is 78!

note of course that this isn't very useful for attempting to take cube roots of numbers that don't have integer cube roots. i guess you could approximate it to the nearest 10 but that's about it.

edit: to be fair most of these tricks are rendered useless by having a calculator. so get one.
(\o/)  If you want it, you find a way. Otherwise you find excuses. No exceptions.
 /_\   aka Shinbi (requesting a name change since 27/05/09 ☺)
Kentor *
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States5784 Posts
February 21 2009 06:18 GMT
#11
can you use mutliply instead of times for like transitive verb thanks
HeavOnEarth
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States7087 Posts
February 21 2009 06:28 GMT
#12
On February 21 2009 14:27 Hypnosis wrote:
nAX^n-1 use it

uh you can't really use single variable calculus without ... a variable ;o
"come korea next time... FXO house... 10 korean, 10 korean"
Malongo
Profile Blog Joined November 2005
Chile3472 Posts
February 21 2009 06:57 GMT
#13
this is not a shortcut but a fun fact: every prime number (but 2) belongs at least 1 pythagorean triad as a summand..
May be useful if someday you need to find a rectangle triangle with a given integer side as a cathetus
Example find a pythagorean triad wich has 11 has a summand

since a^2+b^2=c^2 => a^2=c^2-b^2=(c+b)*(c-b) we "demand" c-b=1 a^2=c+b and solve
setting a=11 we have
a^2=121, c=61, b=60 thus
11^2+60^2=61^2

a=5 gives b=12, c=13
a=7 gives b=24, c=25
a=13 gives b=84 c,= 85 and so on.

corollary:
every whole number (but 2 or 1) can be put as a cathetus side in a rectangled triangle with both the remaining sides whole numbers.

NOTE: NOT every pythagorean triad is described by this method.8^2+15^2=17^2 is not from this "family"
Help me! im still improving my English. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. M. G.
liger13
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States1060 Posts
February 21 2009 07:05 GMT
#14
ooh, fun tricks... i used to carry a ti-84 in my pocket so i could tell my math teacher that i did, so i could use it on a test....
but now that i don, these could actaully be helpful
I feel like pwning noobs
ZerG~LegenD
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
Sweden1179 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-02-21 08:35:01
February 21 2009 08:28 GMT
#15
Google vedic mathematics and you'll find a lot of tricks.

Another very useful tool is a mnemonic system for converting numbers into words if you want to do larger stuff in your head, remembering what numbers you're going to sum in the end is often harder than the partial multiplications.

Most of these tricks can be derived from the rules of parenthesis multiplication if you split your numbers. For example, ab (a on first spot and b on second spot, not a times b) would become (10*a+b). Alternatively you could split it into ([a+1]*10-[10-b]).
Even a broken clock is right twice a day
traced
Profile Joined October 2007
1739 Posts
February 21 2009 10:12 GMT
#16
the only trick i use is x11, which basically only saves me a step.
Nytefish
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United Kingdom4282 Posts
February 21 2009 10:24 GMT
#17
I don't use any tricks, just brute force long multiplication all the way!
No I'm never serious.
[r]h_probe
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
United States188 Posts
February 21 2009 10:41 GMT
#18
A trick:

To test whether or not a number is divisible by 3 you add up the digit of the number and if that number is divisible by 3 then the original number is.

For example:

1893

1+8+9+3 = 21

21 is divisible by 3 therefore 1893 is

suppose it is a huge number:

192345
1+9+2+3+4+5 = 24
2+4 = 6
6 is divisible by 3. Therefore 24 is divisible by 3. Therefore 192345 is divisible by 3.

Maenander
Profile Joined November 2002
Germany4926 Posts
Last Edited: 2009-02-21 11:10:35
February 21 2009 11:10 GMT
#19
On February 21 2009 19:41 [r]h_probe wrote:
A trick:

To test whether or not a number is divisible by 3 you add up the digit of the number and if that number is divisible by 3 then the original number is.

For example:

1893

1+8+9+3 = 21

21 is divisible by 3 therefore 1893 is

suppose it is a huge number:

192345
1+9+2+3+4+5 = 24
2+4 = 6
6 is divisible by 3. Therefore 24 is divisible by 3. Therefore 192345 is divisible by 3.


A trick?
Not to be rude, but I learned that in 5th grade and so did my classmates. The same is valid for 9 btw.

There is a more general rule behind this one, which we didn´t learn back then

The k-digit-sum:
If the k-digit-sum of a number is divisible by any factor of (10^k - 1), the number is divisible by this factor.
Your example is included, it is the case k=1 (normal digit sum, 10^1-1 = 9 with the factors 9 and 3)

Another example, k=2:

10^2-1 = 99
factors of 99: 3,9,11,33,99

some number: 72072
its 2-digit-sum: 07+20+72 = 99

of course the 2-digit-sum 99 is divisible by all factors of 99, so the number 72072 is divisible by 3,9,11,33 and 99
72069 with its 2-digit-sum 96 is only divisible by 3, and NOT divisible by 9,11,33,99

One could go on with k=3,4 etc
b3tty
Profile Blog Joined September 2008
Canada216 Posts
February 21 2009 11:18 GMT
#20
not sure how useful the trick in that video is, but it's pretty cool nonetheless.
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