posted on April 4, 2007 09:25:09 AM
WARNING ** Off Topic so if it so if you fly into a rage,your chest tightens, or if it inflames your stomach - to see OFF Topic Post -PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST
OK for the rest of us --
This will show your age
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DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!
It takes less than a minute .
Work this out as you read ...
Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out!
This is not one of those waste of time things, it's fun.
1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to go out to eat.
(more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1757 ....
If you haven't, add 1756.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.
You should have a three digit number
The first digit of this was your original number
(I.e., how! Many times you want to go out to restaurants in a week.)
posted on April 4, 2007 11:22:25 AM
Yep. I'm asking some mathematically inclined family members to tell me how this can happen. There's a trick built into it somewhere.
_____________________
"There is more to life than increasing its speed." --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on April 4, 2007 01:25:45 PM
I had to do it 3 times because I kept doing it wrong but finally IT WORKED.
Reminds me of the puzzlers on Click and Clack's radio show. When is a mathematically savvy EOer going to come along and tell us why?
-----o----o----o----o----o----o----o----o
“The illiterate of the future will be the person ignorant of the use of the camera as well as of the pen.”
Maholy-Nagy, Vision in Motion, 1947
posted on April 4, 2007 06:56:48 PM
Alright... explanation time (as I dust off the cobwebs from my B.A. in mathmatics...):
There's two parts to this trick... one is to isolate the number you pick (and it doesn't really have to be constrained... it would still work if you decided to go out to eat 30 times a week)... and the other is to get the year you last celebrated your birthday (so that when you subtract your original birthyear, you get your age).
Here's how it works. To isolate the number you picked... we're going to move it off to the left of the other numbers by multiplying it by 100 (steps 2+4). Now... as for getting the last year you celebrated your birthday... notice what's happing with the rest of the numbers. We started out with 5 from step #3. We changed that to 250 from step #4 (5x50). Then we add that to our number in step 5 and you get either 2007 or 2006.
So, when we subtract our birthyear from that number we get our age... and the number that we isolated as the "hundreds" reappears in our hundred placeholder...
(incedently... this problem makes the assumption that your age will be TWO digits... so if you're a hundred or older, it won't work)
Alright... that's my math lesson for the evening... here's another challenge for someone else, though (it's based on a similar concept... but can you tell me exactly why it works?):
1. Enter into your calculator the first 3 digits of your phone number (not area code).
2. Multiply by 80
3. Add 1
4. Multiply the result by 250
5. Add the last four digits of your number to the result
6. Add the last four digits again
7. Subtract 250
8. Divide by 2
Does your answer look familiar? If you didn't get your phone number, try again.
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posted on April 4, 2007 07:08:30 PM
I am always amazed when someone can break down something like that and explain it...my DH can do that too...he is so logical it can drive me nuts....ME...I prefer to think it's MAGIC!
posted on April 4, 2007 08:26:58 PM
Me too, Otteropp. Takes a very different sort of mind.
_____________________
"There is more to life than increasing its speed." --Mahatma Gandhi
