I hate math, but these math tricks bring me back to my fourth grade when I discovered how to write HELLO on my solar-powered 1975 model calculator. Or my "Little Professor" calculator, shown here. I really owned this calculator and used it often to calculate earnings as the world's first ten-year-old millionaire with a financial windfall earned from... oh heck, I used it to play math games and to figure out how much allowance I had to hoard weekly to afford the latest K-Tel record.
If you are like me and have a hard time balancing a simple checkbook with the Little Professor, try this math trick on for size. Print it out... it's fun at cocktail parties with invited guests who carry calculators in their shirt pockets!
1. Get a calculator. If you don't have one, use the one on your computer, silly. If you don't have a computer, steal one and then you'll have a computer AND a calculator for math tricks.
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the areacode). Or your drug dealer's phone number. Whatever.
3. Multiply by 80 (the year my Little Professor died of corroded batteries)
4. Add 1 (singular sensation)
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
8. Subtract 250 (I know you are looking up to #5 to see if you just ADDED 250. You didn't, silly.)
9. Divide number by 2, because you are sharing this trick equally with a friend.
[drum roll please... the suspense is killing you...]
Ta da! Recognize the answer? Aren't you amazing? Don't you wish being thin and pretty and wrinkle-free were this simple? Is there a cool math trick to make my mortgage payment disappear?
If you are like me and have a hard time balancing a simple checkbook with the Little Professor, try this math trick on for size. Print it out... it's fun at cocktail parties with invited guests who carry calculators in their shirt pockets!
1. Get a calculator. If you don't have one, use the one on your computer, silly. If you don't have a computer, steal one and then you'll have a computer AND a calculator for math tricks.
2. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the areacode). Or your drug dealer's phone number. Whatever.
3. Multiply by 80 (the year my Little Professor died of corroded batteries)
4. Add 1 (singular sensation)
5. Multiply by 250
6. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
7. Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
8. Subtract 250 (I know you are looking up to #5 to see if you just ADDED 250. You didn't, silly.)
9. Divide number by 2, because you are sharing this trick equally with a friend.
[drum roll please... the suspense is killing you...]
Ta da! Recognize the answer? Aren't you amazing? Don't you wish being thin and pretty and wrinkle-free were this simple? Is there a cool math trick to make my mortgage payment disappear?
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2 comments:
Julie,
This doesn't actually work for Hong Kong as we have 9 digit phone numbers! The fourth digit of my phone number was missing. Cute, though.
OMG! I haven't tried this yet but I actually had that calculator and every K-Tel record there was.
Those were the good ol' days!
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