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Math Patterns

My daughter was working on a math problem today. She initially got it wrong, and as I was helping her with it the second time, I came across something I thought was pretty cool.

The problem called for her to calculate the perimeter of a rectangle. The rectangle had two sides that measured 16 units and two that measured eight units. The answer was 48, but the coolness lies in something further.

If you add the two eight-unit sides, you get 16. Now you have a total of 3 16’s. The square root of 16 is 4, or 4 x 4 = 16.

Now, if you multiply the 3 by the first 4, you get 12. If you multiply that 12 by the second 4, you get, surprise, 48 (or 16 + 16 + 16).

This works with any whole number that is a square. That number added three times (or multiplied by three) equals its square root multiplied by the product of its square root and three.

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Kim Siever

Queer Mormon poet with radical political views. I have been married 27 years, and we have 6 children. Sunday school president. Served in the Utah Provo Mission.

10 thoughts on “Math Patterns”

  2. Hey Kim,

    3×25 = 5x(5×3)
    simplified: 25 = 5×5
    or: 25 = 25

    I would hope this always works, since all you’ve done is rewritten the squared number as a product of its’ roots. The 3 is irrelevant.

    Math is fun. Even more fun when it makes you money.

    ;)

  3. math fun? surely you jest. money is fun…well, when you have it. ok, sometimes. whew some of these lottery winners aren’t having so much fun lately.

    READING is fun. :)

  4. For those that like math and reading, I highly recommend “The Golden Ratio” by Mario Livio.

    (You don’t have to be good at math to appreciate the beautiful interaction between mathematics and nature).

  6. Jeff, it sounds like we have the same taste in books (I’ve already read Ratio as well).

    Have you read Impossibility by Barrow?

    It’s a mind-blower as far as I’m concerned.

    I also really enjoyed the Code Book by Singh (I think that’s the author).

  7. I agree Mary.. I LOVE reading.. I did love Math until they brought the alphabet into it then it got confusing.. then I hit grqade 10 and it all made sense and I got very good at it.. now I have FM and I have to keep calling a certain unnamed person to ask how to do percentages again!!! Good thing I never forgot how to read!!

    And Kim did Sinead come up with this all on her own or was this your doing?

  8. I loved my college math classes, but they started out remedial and then I had a lot of tutoring, but I enjoyed it.

    I think math and light are the main ways God works. Not the spiritual stuff, I mean, but I think the spiritual stuff will make sense mathematically, too.

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