mathematical quickies | Yan's One Minute Math Blog

Vintage Christmas—Just like Baby Jesus two millennia ago!

Christmas is a golden and joyful opportunity for number enthusiasts and math geeks to sharpen their creative mathematical problem-solving skills.

Here are 12 CHRISTmaths cookies that may help you shake your brain a little bit in the midst of Christmas festivities.

Warning: Refrain from forwarding this post to relatives or friends living in countries, which are intolerant of Christmas and Christianity, such as Brunei, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia, as it’s haram for “infidels” to take part in any kind of Christmas celebrations. And I assume that includes reading any on-line materials deemed un-Islamic or un-Mohammedan, which might lead believers astray from the faith.

1. Unlucky Turkeys

Estimate the number of turkeys that make their way to the supermarkets every year.

2. A Xmas Candy

Mary wanted to buy a candy that costs 25 cents. A dated vending machine would take one-cent, five-cent, and ten-cent coins in any combination. How many different ways can she use the coins to pay for the candy?

3. The Dimensions of a Cross

A square of side 25 cm has four of its corners cut off to form a cross. What is the perimeter of the cross?

4. The Number of Crossings

Two lines can cross one time, three lines three times, four lines six times, and five lines ten times. If there are 25 lines, what would be the maximum number of crossings be?

5. An Eco-Xmas

If all instances of the word “CHRISTMAS” were replaced with “XMAS,” how much ink and paper (or Xmas trees) could you save every year? How much money could be channelled back to feeding the poor and the hungry during the festive season?

6. Number of Xmas Cards

In an age of Xmas e-cards and video cards, how many Christmas greetings cards are still being sent worldwide? How many trees are being saved every festive season?

7. Does Xmas! have 25 digits?

1! = 1, 2! = 1 × 2 = 2, 5! = 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 × 5 = 120—a 3-digit number, and 10! = 1 × 2 ×⋯× 10 = 3,628,800—a 7-digit number.

(a) Without a calculator, how would you verify whether the number 25! has precisely 25 digits or not.

(b) Which positive integers n (other than the trivial case n = 1) for which n! has exactly n digits?

8. Xmas Trees

Guesstimate how big a forest would 25 million Christmas trees occupy.

9. Folding papers

Fold a single piece of paper perfectly in half, from left to right. How many creases will there be after the 25th fold, when you continue folding so that all the rectangles are folded into two halves each time?

10. Pre-Xmas Tax

Imagine Singapore were to implement a pre-Christmas tax on all kinds of Christmas marketing before the first week of December. Estimate how many extra million dollars would the Income Tax department collect every festive season.

11. A Xmas Quickie or Toughie

What is the sum of the last two digits of 1! + 2! + 3! +⋯+ 24! + 25!?

12. An Ever-Early Xmas

Show that as one celebrates more and more Christmases (or, as one gets older and wiser), Christmas seems to come earlier every year.

References

Gould T. (2013). You’re all just jealous of my jetpack. New York: Drawn & Quarterly.

Yan, K.C. (2011). Christmaths: A creative problem solving math book. Singapore: MathPlus Publishing.

Zettwoch, D., Huizenga, J., May, T. & Weaver, R. (2013). Amazing facts… & beyond! with Leon Beyond. Minneapolis: Uncivilized Books.

A Xmas Bonus: 25 CHRISTmaths Toughies from Singapore ?? http://tinyurl.com/q9w3ne9

Selected Hints & Answers

2. 12 ways. Hint: Make an organized list.

3. 100 cm.

4. 300 crossings.

5. About 30 million gallons of ink, 500 square miles of paper, and $15 trillion could be saved.

6. Hint.

7. (b) n = 22, 23, 24.

9. 2²⁵ – 1.

11. 4.

12. Hint: Why as one gets older, time appears to fly faster.

2012-12-21 23.13.28

A classic elementary math problem that folks from a number of professions, from psychologists to professors to priests like to ask is the following:

A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total.
The bat costs a dollar more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?

For novice problem solvers, the immediate, intuitive answer is 10 cents. Yet the correct response is 5 cents. Why is that so?

If the ball is 10 cents, then the bar has to cost $1.10, which totals $1.20. Why do most of us jump to the wrong conclusion—that the ball costs 10 cents?

We should expect few students to bother checking whether the intuitive answer of 10 cents could possibly be wrong. Research by Professor Shane Frederick (2005) finds that this is the most popular answer even among bright college students, be they from MIT or Harvard.

A few years ago, I included a similar question for a grade 2 supplementary title, as it was in vogue in some local text papers. See the question below.

Recently, while revising the book, I saw that the model drawing had been somewhat modified by the editor. Although a model drawing would likely help a grade 2 child to better visualize what is happening, however, a better shading, or the use of a dotted line, would have made the model easier to understand. Can you improve the model drawing?

Try to solve the above question in a different way, using the same model drawing.

Interestingly, I find out that even after warning students of the danger of simply accepting the obvious answer, or reminding them of the importance of checking their answer, variations of the above question do not seem to help them improve their scores. I recently tickled my Fan page readers with the following mathematical trickie.

Two cousins together are 11.
One is 10 years older than the other.
Find out how old both of them are.

Let me end with this Cognitive Reflection Test (CTR), which is made up of tricky questions whose answers tend to trap the unwary, and which may be suitably given to problem solvers in lower grades.

1. If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 bearings, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 bearings?

2. In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake?

3. A frog is climbing up a wall which is 12 m high. Every day, it climbs up 3 m but slips down 2 m. How many days will it take the frog to first reach the top of the wall?

4. A cyclist traveled from P to Q at 20 km/h, and went back at 10 km/h. What is his average speed for the entire journey?

5. It costs $5 to cut a log into 6 pieces. How much will it cost to cut the log into 12 pieces?

Expected incorrect answers

1. 100 minutes. 2. 24 days. 3. 12 days. 4. 15 km/h 5. $10

Correct answers

References

Donnelly, R. (2013). The art of thinking clearly. UK: Sceptre.

Yan, K. C. (2012). Mathematical quickies & trickies. Singapore: MathPlus Publishing.

Postscript: What’s your CTR score? Here is something to ponder about: Those with a high CTR score are often atheists; those with low CTR results tend to believe in God or some deity.

© Yan Kow Cheong, May 7, 2013.

For practice on the Singapore model method, this title may help—visit Singaporemath.com

Yan's One Minute Math Blog

News & Views about Singapore Math

Tag Archives: mathematical quickies

The 12 Problems of CHRISTmaths

A Singapore Grade Two Tricky Question