Thursday, January 20, 2011

A bit Mathematical today!

All of us are grown up's are now done with math, equations, formula's and so on. Right?
And geeky people like me in school and college, topped Math and cried if I got 99 out of 100 since geeky people like me, didn’t like losing that one point/ mark due to a stupid mistake!
And even if you could not wait till Math is done with, you still encountered formulae and equations and factors..Right?

This afternoon a colleague and I were once again discussing Chinese Mother's/ Tiger Moms... Here she is Chinese and I am Indian. Needless to say, interesting conversation. But more on that later.
Anyhow, she was telling me a math problem that her 11 year old (with a little help from her father) cracked and it took her a decent amount of time to even figure out.
So, the math geek in me awoke and said, bring it on Sista!!!(Roar!)

It took me a while, some of her help and using 4-5 pages on my notebook to come to an answer which was... correct. Needless to say, I was super happy that answer was 'eventually' correct and super upset since it took me a good 25-35 minutes to even come close! See the geek in me is very much alive.

Anyhow, so here it is for you...
So here is simple question (Or not)- No google allowed at all.. so don’t cheat!!!

Add sequence of numbers..

1+2+3+4+5+6+...+n=465
n= ?

Come on... put your thinking caps on.. and get back to me with responses and how you got to it!

Prize for winning: Pat on your back and knowing that it all comes fleeting back to you!
Now... tell me- Did your geek hat come back on? Or did' Thank god, I am done with this Math crap' issue came into light? Be honest now.

Edited to add: NO CALCULATORS as well... please.

8 comments:

GB said...

I just closed my eyes and wished the math away. :D see? it worked!

Garima, I'm hosting a giveaway, do drop by to enter!!

Anonymous said...

I went by the formula sum of sequence upto n = n(n+1)/2

(I know I am pathetic for still remembering the formula)

But then I didn't know how to go further with n*n + n = 930, I forgot :|

(I am even more pathetic now!)

Then I just added old school method until I reached 30.

Total time taken 8min :D

Garima said...

@ GB... haha.. It does work... All right will hop over soon and enter give away... does any type of "bribery" work.. do tell! ;-)

@ Celestial Rays.... wwwwwwwwwwwwwwoh. ... You knew the formula... let me repeat.. you knew the formula.. And here I thought I was the geek ;-)
Answer is right.. all right a clue, think about factors..
8 min... it took me about 10 min. to get to the formula to begin with... now did you use a calci?

Anonymous said...

no i actually added up in that time. :D
i know i am a hopeless geek :P

Rohini said...

What GB said :)
(About wishing the math away, not the giveaway :D)

Garima said...

@ Celestial rays... haha!!! Geerk Sista's!
@ Rohini... i Hear you. Its so weird, I wish the same for chemistry every single time!

UmaS said...

hey....not bad at all....was able to solve it in 10 mins...answer is 30. right ???? am still peeping into maths text books of my daughters...it really helps ;)

Priyanka Rajkhowa said...

Ha ha ha ...good one..I couldn't believe it myself when the arithmetic sequence add formula came to my mind...I had thought I had long forgotten all this stuff...hvae forgotten how to factorize unfortunately...lol...oh well