Recreational Math | Yan's One Minute Math Blog

If you had been on Facebook for some time, it’s very likely that you would have come across a certain type of numbers puzzles streaming your feed. Clearly, they’re not quite the typical numerical puzzles that often appear in school math books; rather, they’re closer to the types of questions posed in aptitude or IQ tests. One such number puzzle is the following.

Unlike in textbooks that often present these logic puzzles in an uninteresting way, by seeing these colorful number puzzles on Facebook or Pinterest, and being hinted that only a small percent of the problem solvers apparently managed to get the correct answer, this entices readers to give it a try to see how well they’ll fare vis-à-vis their oft-mathematically challenged Facebook friends. Here’s another such number puzzle.

Arguably, these numbers-and-words puzzles have a certain charm to it, because they often require just simple logic to solving them, unlike similar brainteasers that may require some knowledge of elementary or middle-school math. What about the following Facebook numerical puzzle?

What is 1 + 1?

What do you make of this one?

If these on-line numbers puzzles indirectly help promote logic and number sense among math-anxious social-media addicts; and along the way, provide them with some fun and entertainment, let’s have more of them in cyberspace!

Let me leave you with half a dozen of these numerical puzzles, stolen from my Facebook feed. Note that these types of brain-unfriendly math or logic questions may have more than one mathematically or logically valid answer, depending on the rule or formula you use—they serve as numerical catalysts for promoting creative thinking in mathematics.

Happy Creative Problem Solving!

In my formative years, I don’t recall any elementary school teachers sharing some mathematical puns with us. I suppose that the arithmetic of yesteryear was often taught in the most uninteresting way by many who probably didn’t look forward to teaching it to a bunch of noisy kids.

Recently, while reading Stewart Francis’s Pun direction: Over 500 of his greatest gags…and four crap ones!, I came across a number of numerical puns that might even be appreciated by some nerdy seven-year-olds. Stewart Francis is considered to be the best Canadian comedian from Southern Ontario. Here are two dozen odd math-related puns I’ve stolen from his punny book. Hope you enjoy them!

The number of twins being born has doubled.

They also stole my calculator,
which doesn’t add up.

Four out of ten people are used in surveys. Six are not.

Crime in lifts is on the rise.

“QED Gravestone Small Poster” www.cafepress.com

I recently overcame my fear of calculators.
It was a twelve-step program.

Women are attracted to foreign men. I’ve heard that at least uno, dos, tres times.

All seventeen of my doctors say I have an addictive personality.

There’s a slim chance my sister’s anorexic.

Truthfully, we met at a chess match, where she made the first move.

Is my wife dissatisfied with my body? A tiny part of me says yes.

I read that ten out of two people are dyslexic.

They now have a website for stutterers, it’s
wwwdotwwwdotwwwdotwwwdotdotdot.

I have mixed race parents, my father prefers the 100 metres.

I’m the youngest of three, my parents are both older.

Clichés are a dime a dozen.

I’m an underachiever 24-6.

I used to recycle calendars.
Those were the days.

I’ve learned two things in life.
The second, is to never cut corners.

‘Any man who lives his life in accordance to a book is a fool.’
Luke 317

I can say ‘No one likes a show off’ in forty-three languages.

I was once late because of
high-fiving a centipede.

Of the twenty-seven
students in my maths class,
I was the only one who failed.
What are the odds of that, one
in a million?

I’ve met some cynical people
in my twenty-eight years.

I was good at history.
Wait a minute, no, no I wasn’t.

I was terrible at school. I failed
maths so many times, I can’t even
count.

Reference
Francis, S. (2913). Pun direction: Over 500 of his greatest gags…and four crap ones! London: Headline Publishing Group.

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