Friday, March 1, 2013

Number Tricks for You and Your Kids

The first one is for you:
How do you write 5 inside 4?
Hint: The Pope...


The second one is for your kids:
It is a hidden numbers game. Click below to view The Math Mom's logo. In it we hid at least 10 numbers. Print the image and together with your kids find all the numbers. Highlight them in a different color and email a snapshot to me.



Solve either trick and get one puzzle point. Solve both and get two. Your answers are accepted any time until midnight Eastern Time on Sunday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon.

9 comments:

anne-marie said...

Benedict XVI or I guess how to write a 5 inside a 6 with capital letters.
So a 5 inside a 4 should be IV.

FIVE has four letters, maybe we could also say that it is a five inside a 4.

Dennis (of Dennis and Katrina) said...

Well, the Pope (whoever he may be) lives in Rome. So, per the hint, I think Roman numbers and letters must be involved. My first thought was that four (IV) appears inside 5 (F-IV-E).... but that's not what you asked! Then I remembered watching an episode of Quantum Leap with the kids last night - it was produced by Belisarius Productions... but, when they write the name in the stone tablet, it's written
B-E-L-I-S-A-R-I-V-S - because in the Roman alphabet the letter "U" is written as a "V".

So, in the Roman alphabet, four is written as:

F-O-V-R

"V" also happens to be "5" in roman numerals.

So, "5" can be written in "4"... in the Roman alphabet: F-O-V-R.

Dennis (of Dennis and Katrina)

Susan said...

Use roman numerals. V is inside IV

Anonymous said...

One idea for the first question:
Using Roman numerals, 5 (written as V) is inside/a part of 4 (IV).

TracyZ

Anonymous said...

Maria,

For the first one, your clue helped me out a lot. Roman Numeral 5 is V and usually with a line on the top and bottom. 4 is IV with the same lines usually. You can hide the IV inside the V by putting the I on top of one of the lines of the V or on top of one of the lines on top or the bottom so it would be superimposed.

Sorry, but AI do not have a printer that works. I found every number at least once.
1 - woman's leg (Maria's?) by the chair leg. Numerous pages on top of the book or the spine of the book.
2 - curl in front above 3 and beside 4.
3 - curl at very top of head and curl on front below 2.
4 - mid front of head.
5 - This was the hardest. and somewhat of a reach. back of head there is a 7, which can also be the top part of the 5. A curl is below that and if you flip the image over to the right then it would be a five.
6 - Right above the earring laying on it's side.
7 - back of head and both legs of chair are upside down 7s.
8 - There are at least 7 curls with zeros on top of each other.
9 - On the right side of the necklace and probably more in the curls depending on how imaginative one is.
0 - base of chair. At least 20 curls.

Gurubandhu

Jerome said...

Puzzle One
=========
I can make 4 inside 5 by using Roman Numerals. (F(IV)E which is not what you asked for, but that’s what I came up with first.

The only way I can make Five inside 4 is to cheat a little. The Latin alphabet uses V for U. (There doesn’t appear to be a distinct V). So you could do it like this Fo(V)r.

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_alphabet

Puzzle Two
=========
Mary and I had an interesting time of this. We made a game out of it. For 3 minutes we colored in all the numbers we could find. As usual, she beat me (almost 2 to 1) in this kind of game. I found 14 numbers to her 26. I think counting all those zeros was a bit unfair, but I think that is just a husband’s sour grapes. (Our pictures will be scanned and sent to you separately).

Jerome's wife said...

Dear MathMom, We did count all the numbers we could find while sitting in a busy mall treating ourselves to a "day out" as we were celebrating the completion of getting our income tax together for the accountant. A mall is a great place to concentrate; the constant milling about of people can be very relaxing. I may have missed a few zeros, and found a few after the timer rang and I couldn't claim them then.

Maria said...

Oh you saved my neck!
I did mean to write "how do you make 4 inside 5" but mixed up and gave a "5 inside 4" challenge.
For the "4 inside 5", the answer I was fishing for is F-IV-E with 4 represented in Roman numerals as IV. But my mistake lead to your very interesting answers.

Dennis and Jerome discovered that the Latin alphabet uses V for U and therefore FOUR will be written as FOVR with 5 (V) inside.
I love it!
All the answers are counted in.

Anne-marie, Jerome, Mary and Gurubandhu - you all receiving a second puzzle point for the hidden numbers game. Mary and Jerome - I am glad to hear that you played it as part of a done-with-taxes celebration.

Unknown said...

write four like IV here 5 is inside 4 i.e. V,
So i written 5 inside 4.

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.