Nov
19

Can You Solve This – Math Tricks!

Filed Under (From Mr. Lund) by Daniel Lund on 19-11-2009 and tagged , , , ,

This week’s math challenge should be easy – try at least one of these “magic math tricks” on your family and friends!  (You should be seeing many people over the holidays!)  Once you’ve amazed them, return here and comment about your experience!  (or have THEM comment!)  - Mr. Lund

Finding Someone’s Age – Number Trick

  • Ask the person to multiply the first number of his or her age by 5.
  • Tell them to add 3.
  • Now tell them to double this figure.
  • Finally, have the person add the second number of his or her age to the figure and ave them tell you their answer.
  • Deduct 6 and you will have their age.

Grey Elephants in Denmark – Number Trick

  • Pick a number between 1 & 10.
  • Multiply by 9.
  • If the result is a two digit number, add the two digits together.
  • Subtract 5 from the resulting number.
  • Beginning with the letter A as 1, count over in the Alphabet that many letters ( I usually will count a few out loud ” A is 1, B is 2, C is 3.”)
  • Now think of a Country that begins with your letter (Only big Baseball fans, or Cigar smokers will get the Dominican Republic, the rest will get Denmark)
  • Take the second letter in your county and think of a Circus Animal that begins with that letter.
  • Wait a couple of seconds and Declare “There are no Elephants in Denmark!

Cell Phone Number Magic – Number Trick

  • Grab a calculator (you won’t be able to do this one in your head)
  • Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code)
  • Multiply by 80
  • Add 1
  • Multiply by 250
  • Add the last 4 digits of your phone number
  • Add the last 4 digits of your phone number again
  • Subtract 250
  • Divide by 2

Of course….. The real math trick is how these tricks work.  If you look closely, you might discover the math that is involved in each trick!

Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)

6 Responses to “Can You Solve This – Math Tricks!”

  1.   Ryan Says:

    On the very last one. I did all that it told me to do. As my final answer I got 75641. I see the trick that is added in these math tricks!
    Ryan

    [Reply]

  2.   Beth Says:

    Hi this is Beth’s sister Michelle. We did the cell phone trick and we did it a lot of times. We think it’s amazing how you type in the numbers and add it and it comes up with your phone number. I would not think that just put numbers in and have your phone number. I would tell everyoneone who loves magic tricks to do this trick because, we just went to the Mathe Magic Show and learned a lot of magic tricks. I hope we have more tricks on this blog. I haven’t seen anything like it before.

    [Reply]

  3.   isabelle Says:

    I did the grey elephants in Denmark trick with my sister, she said,”it was kinda cool”.

    [Reply]

  4.   Marisa R. Says:

    I have done each one and the math tricks are too easy to find in each trick! I had fun doing them and my favorite trick was the cell phone trick. I did it and it came up with my cell phone number and it’s as if the calculator was my cell phone since it had my number!!! It was really cool and I enjoyed the rest. Hope to see more math tricks coming along the way on the blog!

    [Reply]

  5.   Ms. Barham Says:

    I can’t believe that you can find out a person’s age with a math trick! I am so glad none of you have tried it on me….

    Golden tickets to those of you that can figure it out by utilizing the math trick!!!

    [Reply]

  6.   marissad Says:

    I did the age trick on Easton and her age is 10. I find the trick very interesting.

    [Reply]

Leave a Reply

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.
Anti-Spam Image