Let’s see how sharp you are upstairs, eh?
You see this equation:
Well, I came across it on a blog I read every once in a while. Don’t know whether it’s true or not, but it seems that the old-school Soviets would train their youth to become formidable mathematical geniuses by forcing them to solve equations such as this one without using pencil and paper. It had to be done in their heads.
Can you solve it? In your head, that is?
I’ll be honest. I couldn’t, but I was able to reason my way to the answer. The problem I had was not in figuring out the squares, but in adding them together. Could not for the life of me remember five figures and four sums. My short term memory is shot. I blame it on sleep debt.
Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
4 comments:
answer is 2. c'mon we have Ed's genes in us
Uncle
I certainly cannot but I'd bet the ranch your Grandfather could've...and yes, in his head! He would always be able to give me the answer to my Algebra problem but frustrating to me...not be able to tell me how he got it! There might be something there to the European way of teaching the kids math! Always
One other trick to doing it in your head. dont try to remember 5 sums and add. add as you go so you always only have 2 numbers in your head.
Uncle
I cheated this way: the first sqaure is 100, the last about 200, the middle about 150. The remaining two probably average 300 or so, getting a numerator of about 750. Thinking divergently, I guessed at an answer of 2.
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