• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Math Trick Has People Asking “Why Weren’t We Taught This In School?”

January 20, 2025 by Deborah Bloomfield

Math, though we promise you it really isn’t that daunting when you sit down and study it, has a reputation for being a tough subject. People can be put off by the basics, like multiplication, without even getting to the really difficult (and interesting) stuff like bunkbed conjectures and the Mandelbrot set.

ADVERTISEMENT GO AD FREE

But there are tricks for multiplication (and percentages) that can help you get to the answer more quickly. One of these went viral on X recently, which turns multiplication into a simple game of counting dots.



The “trick”, which is taught in Japanese schools, involves drawing parallel lines to represent the digits you are multiplying together (e.g. vertically), with the second set of digits intercepting them going the other way (e.g. along the horizontal).

The sum 32 x 4.

The first step, with the vertical lines representing 32 separated by a gap.

Image credit: © IFLScience

Once you have drawn the second set of lines, you merely have to count up the number of intersecting lines in each section to get your answer. Looking at it, you can probably work out what is going on. On the left is the smallest number; on the right, the largest. All of these in the example below are multiplied by 4, due to the four lines intersecting them, giving you the answer.

Japanese multiplication method for 32 x 4.

Count up the intersecting points to get your answer quickly.

Image credit: © IFLScience

The trick works with more difficult sums, though you have to separate the crossed lines into several sections.

Japanese math trick for calculating 24 x 32

In the top left, the largest numbers are multiplied together; in the bottom right, the smallest.

Image credit: © IFLScience

Unfortunately, like in multiplication taught elsewhere, there is no way of getting around carrying the one. For really difficult sums, there is always a trusty calculator. However, the Japanese method of multiplication can help to give younger folk a more intuitive way of doing sums, turning it mainly into drawing lines and counting dots.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Afghan girls stuck at home, waiting for Taliban plan to re-open schools
  2. This Is What Yesterday’s Partial Solar Eclipse Looked Like From Space
  3. Does Chicken Soup Really Help When You’re Sick? Here’s The Science
  4. New Insights Into The Enigmas Of General Anesthesia Discovered After 180 Years

Source Link: Math Trick Has People Asking "Why Weren't We Taught This In School?"

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Scientists Perplexed By 407-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Plant That Doesn’t Follow The Fibonacci Sequence
  • This Giant Goldfish Hybrid Weighs As Much As A 10-Year-Old – A Stark Warning About Dumping Pets
  • Scientists Gave Mice Neanderthal And Denisovan Genes. The Results Were Intriguing
  • 2024 Saw Higher Levels Of Carbon Dioxide In The Atmosphere Than Ever Before
  • Halloween Fireballs Will Grace Our Skies As The Taurid Meteor Showers Arrive
  • Newly Discovered Hunting Megastructures Suggest Pre-Bronze Age Societies More Sophisticated Than Previously Thought
  • What Is Spectroscopy And Why Is It So Important To Science?
  • Parkinson’s “Trigger” Seen For The First Time: Scientists Image The Toxic Molecules Inside The Human Brain
  • What Flying Animals Exist That Are Not Birds?
  • DNA Evidence Uncovers Surprising Origins Of Native Americans
  • Single Gene Swap “Transfers A Behavior” Between Two Species For The First Time
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Has A Rare “Anti-Tail”, New Observations Confirm
  • Asteroid Apophis: Animation Shows Asteroid’s Nail-Biting Close Approach To Earth In 2029
  • Titan Breaks A Key Chemistry Rule: What That Means For Alien Life
  • Scientists Studied “Chicago Rat Hole” – They Have Bad News, The South Atlantic’s Magnetic Field Weak Spot Is Growing, And Much More This Week
  • Could This Be The Real Reason Humans Survived And Neanderthals Died Out?
  • Newly Discovered Snail Species Named After Studio Ghibli Co-Founder Is A Hairy Beauty
  • 2025 SC79 Is The Second-Fastest Asteroid Ever Found – And Only The Second Within Venus’ Orbit
  • When Red Devil Spiders Arrived On A New Island, Their Genome Dramatically Shrank In Half
  • Is This The World’s Oldest Story? Ancient Human Tale About The Seven Sisters May Be From 100,000 BCE
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version