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Basic Maths, Round Numbers and Suanpan

Paddy

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I posted on here, but I would like to ask if anyone else shares this interest. For the simple reason that I had so much trouble understanding it in school, I have always had a dislike for maths, but, recently, after reading about the Japanese and Chinese abacus and downloading a virtual one, I have discovered that I absolutely love adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing round numbers. I understand the importance of being able to work with numbers that aren't exactly round, but I have found that I see a real beauty and elegance in working with whole round numbers.

In school I had to do maths problems like adding 986 and 512 and I sometimes spent weeks getting my head around the concepts and methods involved, but I understand working with round numbers so much more easily.

Am I the only one who sees the beauty and simplicity in working with round numbers, or can others relate to this as well?

Just curious, I guess.

Parents

  • I hated maths at school, but years later I became fascinated by prime numbers, and I've made several original discoveries in the field of number theory that I've never got round to publishing.  For several years, before going to sleep at night, I'd play with a calculator, see patterns in certain number sequences and try to work out the reasons for this.  I also linked my prime-number work to the periodic table of elements, and even with obscure aspects of the French esoteric Tradition.  (I read French fluently, and languages had always been more 'my thing' than numbers). 

    I've also spent long, long hours working on traffic analysis of encrypted radio transmissions consisting of random 5-figure groups (sometimes hundreds in a single message).  The intensity of autism makes this possible - mind-numbing for most people, but not for me!  The occasional flash of insight leads to success, and is well worth the effort.  Most of my work on this has been published.

    Ironically, I have dyscalculia, and have a very strange way of adding up small figures, often making mistakes in the process (the same bizarre method I used at age 4).  Most people can probably add, say 4 and 9, instinctively, but I can't.  Despite this disability, I'm highly tuned to the elegance of numbers, and the mystery of irrational and transcendental numbers, etc. I suspect that the unifying secret of the universe, and everything within it, is inextricably linked to numbers, and that our decimal counting system is also an essential part of the natural order, and no human accident.

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  • I hated maths at school, but years later I became fascinated by prime numbers, and I've made several original discoveries in the field of number theory that I've never got round to publishing.  For several years, before going to sleep at night, I'd play with a calculator, see patterns in certain number sequences and try to work out the reasons for this.  I also linked my prime-number work to the periodic table of elements, and even with obscure aspects of the French esoteric Tradition.  (I read French fluently, and languages had always been more 'my thing' than numbers). 

    I've also spent long, long hours working on traffic analysis of encrypted radio transmissions consisting of random 5-figure groups (sometimes hundreds in a single message).  The intensity of autism makes this possible - mind-numbing for most people, but not for me!  The occasional flash of insight leads to success, and is well worth the effort.  Most of my work on this has been published.

    Ironically, I have dyscalculia, and have a very strange way of adding up small figures, often making mistakes in the process (the same bizarre method I used at age 4).  Most people can probably add, say 4 and 9, instinctively, but I can't.  Despite this disability, I'm highly tuned to the elegance of numbers, and the mystery of irrational and transcendental numbers, etc. I suspect that the unifying secret of the universe, and everything within it, is inextricably linked to numbers, and that our decimal counting system is also an essential part of the natural order, and no human accident.

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