Blog Post #76 Speciality of 1991

Chose this number since this is the entry year into my Alma Mater and we are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year :)

1991 is unique in few ways

a) It is a palindrome (stating the obvious :))
b) 1991 = 181 x 11 and 181 is in turn is a palindrome and 11 as well!!!
c) Observe the pattern of the digits that make up these numbers

1991 = 1^2, 3 ^ 2, 3^2, 1^2
181 = 1 ^ 2, 2 ^ 3, 1 ^ 2
11 = 1 ^ 2, 1 ^ 1

d) 19 x 91 = 1729 which is the magical Ramanujam number and that itself is a elite group to be in

e) Last but not the least, 1991 - 1729 = 262 which is again a palindrome!

As you could see 1991 is unique in so many ways and no wonder the entire batch rocks!

Blog Post #75: Anagram Square Pairs

Observe this example

196 x 196 = 38416, 196 in turn is 49 x 4 which 7 ^ 2 x 2 ^ 2

One of the anagram of 38416 is 16384 which in turn is 128 x 128

Are there other similar square anagram pairs of this nature where the original number (in this case 196) can be further broken down into smaller squares?

There is no right or wrong answer but looking for patterns and observations if any

Blog Post #73 - Identify the approach to this day to day puzzle!

This week's blog came out of an offline discussion with my school friend A Ramananda Pai on a simple Maths problem... Thought of documenting that as a simple blog here primarily to understand how we along with our kids approach the solution and also to drive home the message that whatever we study, always has an application somewhere or the other :)
All along we always wonder why we study certain topics when they may not be of any use and this is a good simple example of how we can put something that we studies during school to real use!

Two people A and B go around a circle and cover a distance of 300 metres during every revolution. Both of them start at the same point and A takes 4 mins to complete 1 round while B takes 7 mins to complete the same round. After how many rounds, will they pass each other again (assume they both clock the same average speed throughout this exercise)

More than the actual answer, remember I am looking for the approach to the solution

Blog Post 72: Breaking down a problem into a set of patterns

I came across this simple problem/riddle floating around in WhatsApp/Facebook and most of the folks got the answer after few iterations or trial and error method...

For a change instead of a puzzle from my end, I thought I will have a a Blog Post taking this example to get different perspectives of the approach taken by individuals

May sound simple for most of you but I personally feel that this exercise is very important for children and it would be good to see how they come up with the solution given how inquisitive they are. That would also help them in the long run to become more analytical/logical rather than follow a formulae/theorem based approach

Q1

       a b c
    + a b c
    + a b c
    ----------
       c c c
   -----------

Q2

        a b c
     + a b c
     + a b c
     ----------
        b b b
     ----------

Both questions are similar and probably Q1 is easier compared to Q2 but did we use the same approach or a variation?

Go ahead and share your views