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Is that possible?

P

Pex

Banned
You know those guys where the host asks them a obscenely long math equation and they answer it faster than the host can punch the numbers into his calculator.







Fixed or real?
 
Some might be real - autistic people have extremely fast mathematical capabilities sometimes.

Edit: Not just autistic people - some people can just do it that fast.
 
Real. There are some tricks but there are people who access info in there brains differently than most. As Legendary said they may be borderline autistic.
 
I bought into that 'Human Calculator' infomercial they used to show after Saturday morning cartoons. Wasn't the spokesman that nerdy kid from the show 'Head of the Class'?? I was so naive back then...told mom "hey mom he's the smartest kid in that tv show and this is how he got smart!" Parents bought me the tapes, I did all the lessons, and I still suck at math. In fact, I probably suck more now because I forgot how to multiply and divide like normal people do.
 
No i think there was some method that you learn and it lets you calculate simple but long math questions out in your mind. But if you start throwing in calculus i doubt they can beat a TI-89.
 
I can actually do it, and I can prove it: here's how.
You tell someone to pick a number between 1 and 100, then you pick one, then you can multiply it faster than they can do it on the calculator.

Lets say they pick 74. You would pick 66. Why 66?

Use a quadratic equation. Let x=70.
simple math says that
(x+4)(x-4)=something.
if x is 70, then you have
(70+4)(70-4)
=> (74)(66)

And we all know that (x+4)(x-4) is just a difference of squares, where
(x-y)(x+y)= x^2-y^2.
so in this case, x=70, y=4
(74)(66) = 70^2-4^2 = 4900 -16 .. do the mental math
4884

done 🙂

edit: this is just an example of a short equation... the longer ones can probably be done using an algorithm of some kind, but if you're talking about some guy making some eqn and some guy solving it, that's pretty talented.
 
Here's a cool trick for multiplying numbers in the 90's..

Say you have:

94 x 98

Take both numbers, and subtract it from 100, so you have 6 and 2..multiply them together and those will be the last two digits of the product.

Then take the number you subtracted 100 from, and take that result and subtract it from the OTHER number..so either you have 94-2, or 98-6, which is 92. The result is 9212.

Or if you have 93 x 91..100-93=7, 100-91=9..93-9=84 and 7x9 = 63, answer is 8463.

What you do is when you hear the first number, subtract that from 100, and take that result and subtract it from the second number to get the first two digits, then figure out the last two digits.

So one more example would be if you hear "96" (think of 4) "times 92", take 92-4=88, and 4x (100-92)=32..8832.

You can do this with numbers in the 100's too, except it's a little different, e.g.:

105x108

Clearly the last two digits will be 40, that's simple..and then you take one of the numbers - 100, and add that result to the second number..i.e. 108-100=8+105 = 113, so 105x108 = 11340.
 
It's real. I used to do math competitions when I was in high school and any state-level competitions would boil down to me and a guy named Colin. If it the questions were longer and more complex, I'd win; if it was based on speed, he'd totally blow anyone out of the water, including me. The moderator could be running through a long mathematical question that the rest of the world was having enough trouble following ("you have a goat attached to the side of a 20' by 40' barn with a 27' leash connected 4' from the corner on one of the short sides. What is the area of the grass that could be grazed by the goat") Colin would answer that before the moderator had finished the question.

I don't know what happened to him afterwards. Last I'd heard, he'd gotten turned down by the colleges he'd applied to because his grade point average wasn't very good--which seems absurd for someone with his talents. Too bad he wasn't good at something schools think is important like, say, football.
 
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