Every second person whom I meet tells me that he/she hates mathematics and that because they hate math, they get poor scores in their exams and that it further aggravates their hatred. Being an avid fan of math, I couldn’t tolerate hearing this and thought I’d share with them some of the magic tricks that math can offer. At the end of each trick, they would just be left mesmerized.
Reflecting on this later, I only thought it fair that I share it here on Helium as well (although many of you might already know these). Many with a desire to create a curiosity and yearning for math (most probably to ward off the math haters), had researched on a set of techniques commonly called Mental Magic. These techniques are so exciting and powerful that they leave those who learn it bewildered. They get tantalized with its workings and their entire attitude towards mathematics changes in a few minutes.Here, I am discussing a technique, by which you can predict the date of birth of any number of people simultaneously. You can try this stunt with your family members, friends, relatives, colleagues, and even in parties.
STEPS
Ask the people to :-
1. Take the number of the month in which they were born (January is 1, February is 2, and so on).
2. Double the number.
3. Add 5 to it.
4. Multiply it by 5.
5. Put a zero behind the answer.
6. Add their date of birth (Example:- If they are born on 5th of some month, then add 5).
After the steps are over, ask them to tell you the final answer. And lo! Just by listening to their final answer you can predict their Date of Birth!
SECRET
From the answer that you get from each member of the audience,
1. Mentally subtract 50 from the last two digits and you will have the date.
2. Subtract 2 from the remaining digits and you will have the month.
And thus, you have easily got the person’s Date of Birth!
EXAMPLE
Assume that I was a member of the audience. My date of birth is June 30th. Then I would have worked out the steps as follows:-
1. Take the month number = 6
2. Double the answer = 12
3. Add 5 to it = 17
4. Multiply it by 5 = 85
5. Put a zero behind the answer = 850
6. Add the Date Of Birth = 850+30 = 880
Thus, my final answer is 880. Now, l will be giving this number to you, and you, the performer must deduce my Date of Birth from this number.
As I had mentioned previously, the first step is to subtract 50 from the last two digits to get the date (80-50 = 30, which is my date), and the second step is to subtract 2 from the remaining digits to get the month (8-2 = 6, which is the month number, and so June is the month). And there you have it! My Date of Birth is June 30th.On similar lines, if the total were 765, 1481 and 1071, the birth dates would be May 15th, December 31st, and August 21st respectively. With the knowledge of this technique, you can predict the birth date of hundreds of people simultaneously.
There are many such methods by which you can predict a person’s birth date, but I think the method above is among the simplest. I can only wonder what your thoughts are on this. When I had first learnt this technique, my first thoughts were to try it out on as many people as possible. It felt immense fun to try it out on all those ignorant people, and gleam at one’s own inner knowledge. I still am just like an obnoxious child when it comes to these techniques. Well, I hope you really enjoyed the article, and changed your negative impressions on math (if there ever had been any). I intend on sharing more of these tricks with the Helium community. Well, until next time!
