Today driving into work listening to the radio they were interviewing a person about a new book coming out, about math. Now perhaps many people already know about this, but the person said that most math teacher don’t. How this is useful to anyone, I don’t know, but it did sound like an interesting bit of math trivia to pass along.

This person said something to the effect of, all numbers in the universe come back to 9. The universe has a way of teaching us math. His basic example was starting with 11, 1+1=2, subtract 2 from 11 you have 9. If for some reason a person thought that 1+1=3 and did the process they would discover their answer was wrong. He used the speed limit of 55, 45 being a multiple of 9. It seems to work with 3 and 4 digit numbers, that’s as far as I went.


Another thing, he gave a problem or math riddle that he didn’t give the solution to. Perhaps there is no solution. 3 men went into a hotel to rent a room for the night, the room was $30. They each gave $10 and went on to their room. The person behind the counter realized they were charged $5 too much, and gave the bellhop 5 singles to take to them. On the way up the bellhop decided that he couldn’t divide the single equally among the men so he took 2 and gave the men the other 3. Now each man has paid $9, which is 27 plus the bellhop has 2, where’s the other 1? Hell if I know.

There is no missing dollar. The cost was $25, and the men paid $2 extra, which went to the bellhop. The question is designed to trick you based on faulty logic.

But what's this about speed limits of 55 mph having something to with the number 45?
[Edited 6/17/08 11:29am]

There figures to be some kind of math wizardy that'll explain it.


The whole 9s thing. Suppose to work like 55, 5+5=10, 55-10=45, 4+5=9, 45-9=36 so on and so forth you get back to 9. 1745, 1+7+4+5=17, 1745-17=1728, you keep going you get back to 9. It just works fast if you just divide the answer by 9
45/9=5, so 1728/9=192. Heck this was from a regular music station, what was up today I don't know. I think the STAR & CAT math scores are rolling in, and they ain't pretty.

55

5 + 5 = 10

1 + 0 = 1

10 - 1 = 9

also:

Three men go to stay at a motel, and the man at the desk charges them $30.00 for a room. They split the cost ten dollars each. Later the manager tells the desk man that he overcharged the men, that the actual cost should have been $25.00. The manager gives the bellboy $5.00 and tells him to give it to the men.

The bellboy, however, decides to cheat the men and pockets $2.00, giving each of the men only one dollar.

Now each man has paid $9.00 to stay in the room and 3 x $9.00 = $27.00. The bellboy has pocketed $2.00. $27.00 + $2.00 = $29.00 - so where is the missing $1.00?

Answer:

Deskman Bellboy Men
-----
$0 $0 $30
$30 $0 $0
$25 $5 $0
$25 $2 $3
-----
$25 $2 -$27
[Edited 6/17/08 13:04pm]

^

morningsong said:

formatting screwed up.

Ultimately, 25 bucks go to the Hotel, 3 Bucks go to the Men, 2 bucks go to the Bellhop.

The men pay 27 bucks total. 25 goes to the hotel, 2 goes to the bellhop.

30 has nothing to do with it.