Page 55 - Scientech 2014-15

Fun with Numbers
We are all familiar with numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
7, 8, 9.
These numbers are a gift from the Indian sub-continent
to the rest of the world through the Arab gateway,
possibly in the ninth century of the present era.
BASIC MATH SYMBOLS
W.L.L We have ‘+’ for addition (6 + 2 = 8), ‘-‘ for subtraction
(6 - 2 = 4), ‘X’ for multiplication (6 X 2 = 12) and ‘÷‚
or /’ for division (6 ÷ 2 =3). Needless to say there
are many, many more symbols like, for example, √
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(square root), Σ (summation), and so on.
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Let us have some fun here.
+ 2 + 34 - 5 + 67 - 8 + 9 = 100
1
123 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 + 8 - 9 = 100
123 + 4 - 5 + 67 - 89 = 100
Did you notice? We have used digits from 1 to 9 and
combinations thereof sequentially, and operations
of addition and subtraction to arrive at a sum of
combinations?
THE ZERO
17702434, 100 in all the cases. Can you find more such
This is the single most innovative concept in
mathematics and "śūnya", the zero, is the pioneering
gift of India to the world: Zero as a number is, not
17702466, merely a symbol for emptiness or a separation mark.
"0" by itself stands for nothing, something that does
not exist.
17701313, P.O.Box : 24451, Muharraq, Kingdom of Bahrain. And yet it is so very powerful.
An easy way to know this is because of the decimal
system that we are so used to.
17255181, DO YOU KNOW?
The Sindhu – Sarasvati Civilization, also known as
Harappan or Indus Valley Civilization, that dates
prior to at least 4500 years before present had
Tel: +973 standardized weights and units of length that were
also in decimal format. There is in fact a "Mohenjo
Daro ruler" divided into units marked out in decimal
subdivisions with amazing accuracy—to within
0.005 of an inch! There has been a continuing
tradition throughout the historical period.
You know why this is so? It is the place value system:
where the zero is placed, makes all the difference.
1 is same as 01, but 10 is 9 + 1.
Again 1 is same as 001, but 100 is 99 + 1 or 98 +
2, and so on.
And again 00000 is nothing but plain 0.
Of course you know that!
Now any number multiplied by 0 is 0; divided by 0
it is infinity!
0/0 is an unknown however, represented by NaN
(Not a Number) in computer parlance. In modern
E-mail : ghmarket@qatar.net.qa 12 + 3 - 4 + 5 + 67 + 8 + 9 = 100 of a ratio determines the value of 0/0 as the
math, zero is also looked upon as something that
is vanishingly small. How fast (or slow) the zero is
approached in the numerator vs. in the denominator
vanishing quantities approaches zero in the limit.
FUN WITH 9
9 is a most interesting number. that's largely
because 9 is 1 less than 10 and most of us have 10
fingers (or digits) and we do arithmetic in a base 10
system. There are amazing number of math tricks
roots".
The digital root of a number, and this only makes
that take advantage of something called "digital
sense for whole numbers, is what you get when you
add up all of its digits. So, the digital root of 112 is
1+1+2, or 4. The digital root for 1234 is 1+2+3+4,
which is 10. Now, when you're computing digital
roots you only want a single digit so in the case of
1234, you add up its digits to get 10 then add 1+0
to get 1. So, 1 is the digital root of 1234.
A few more examples:
314159 --> 3+1+4+1+5+9 --> 23 --> 2+3 --> 5
2718281828 --> 2+7+1+8+2+8+1+8+2+8 --> 47 -->
4+7 --> 11 --> 1+1 --> 2
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 --> 45 --> 4+5 --> 9
The digital root, it turns out, is the remainder when
you divide a number by 9. If you divide 43 by 9
you get 4 remainder 7 and you could have quickly
determined that the remainder was going to be 7 by
adding up the digits of the number 43. Note that, in
this world of digital root 9 and 0 are equivalent. So,
the digital root of 18 is 1+8=9 but when you divide
18 by 9 you don't get 9 as a remainder you get 0.