There are many ivory towers for mathematicians, but applied mathematicians have a basic need to serve others, by helping solve real world problems. They are condemned to wander the world, masquerading as engineers. There are few, but that is good, because few are needed. They carry calculus, differential equations, matrices, and linear transformations like tools in their bag. They may share the explanation of tricks, but never pull them on others, because they know, it is the height of arrogance and abuse of talent to laud over and not serve others, less understanding than they.

Please do not be too hard on the ivory tower mathematicians; many of their flights of fancy-castles in the air have found practical application. There need to be both kinds.

A trick for you all that has practical application; when the balance in your checkbook doesn’t square with the bank’s number, it is a good common thing to look for the exact difference somewhere in your check register or on the bank sheet. That’s OK, and if you find it, that’s great.

But if not, before doing more, divide that difference, by nine. If it divides evenly, there is a good chance you have transposed two adjacent numbers somewhere; an easy error to, exasperatingly, overlook. No guarantees, just a possible clue to minimize the tearing out of hair!

Good Luck and Steady Winds

Trick for multipying by 11

Take the number you are multipllying 11 by......say 23 X 11. Take the first numerial of that number, 2, and place it to the right side of the answer, then take the second numerial, 3, and place it to the left side

of the answer, now add the two numerals together 2 + 3, which equals 5 and place it in the middle of the answer.....2 5 3. If the number is 29 X11, you still put the 2 to the left, the 9 to the right, add 2 + 9 which equals 11, so put the 1 in the middle and then add 2+1, so your answer is 319.

Another trick for multiplying with nines : Every answer equals 9

Example: 1 X 9 = 09  (0+9=9)

              2 X 9 =18 (1+8=9)

              3 X 9 = 27(2 +7=9)

              4 X 9 = 36(3+6=9)

              etc.

Also when you multiply in progression, the answer of the first numeral starts at zero, one, two, three,etc and the second numeral starts at 9 ,then 8, then 7 (look at the answers above to see numerical progression)

Here is a rhyme I taught when I was teaching multiplication and division of fractions that made it easy to remember what to do:

Multiplying fractions, no big problem

top times the top

and bottom times the bottom,

Dividing fractions, easy as pie

Flip the second number and multiply

EX: 1/2 divided by 1/4 = 1/2 X 4/1 = 4/2 =2

I always loved math. I thought it was a fun and wonderful game. My greatest achievement was teaching high level math as a volunteer at my son's elementary school. I set out to change an attitude about math being horrible, and I knew it had worked when more than one of the students (now in high school) I taught, would say aren't you that Math Superstar lady? Then they'd sing one of my math jingles or recite one of our tricks. By the end of the program, we had 98% of the students participating weekly in an extracurricular upper level math program. Let's get teachers who love math into the elementary level math programs to build solid basics for students!