#365DaysOfWriting – Day Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Seven is a magical number.
37 looks unremarkable, doesn’t it? Just like any other run-of-the-mill prime number. For all mathematics novices out there, a prime number is a number that only has 1 and itself as positive divisors. For instance, 37 is divisible only by 1 and 37 itself.
But if you delve a little into the 37 times table, you can see an interesting pattern emerge.
37 x 3 = 111
37 x 6 = 222
37 x 9 = 333
37 x 12 = 444
37 x 15 = 555
37 x 18 = 666
37 x 21 = 777
37 x 24 = 888
37 x 27 = 999
If you multiply 37 with a multiple of 3, from 3 to 27, you get the Nelson series of numbers. I call it Nelson because of the 111 – may David Shepherd’s soul rest in peace.
I’ve always been fascinated by patterns in mathematics. Right from my school days, I found a strange solace in numbers (although my report cards tell an entirely different story). I think this fascination for patterns came from reading cricket scorecards and statistics at an early age. For that, I thank my uncle. He always allowed me to help him compile statistics by reading out numbers and scores to him. I’ll even say that my basic division, multiplication, addition and subtraction improved considerably with my interest in cricket.
Another one of my favourite number series is the palindromic squares.
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Isn’t it a beautiful series to look at? Mathematics has many such gems. To learn more about it in a fun way, there’s a Disney cartoon involving Donald Duck that teaches fractions through a game of three-ball touch pool. It also talks about the beauty of mathematics and how its patterns can be found even in nature (the Golden Ratio, anyone?)
You can watch it here. It’s called ‘Donald in Mathmagic Land’. Lovely stuff.
