ted talk Essay

Submitted By kellie4224
Words: 473
Pages: 2

9/23/13
“Mathemagic” Arthur Benjamin If Benjamin is right, and there truly is method to his madness, then Mathemagic could explain how Benjamin could know that I was born on a Wednesday. Arthur Benjamin’s speech starts out with him asking four people with calculators to come up on stage and check his results. He then multiplies two digit numbers together. The numbers 22 and 47 are multiplied in his head and his answer is 1,034, which is correct. Benjamin goes on to squaring a number which he defines as taking a number and multiplying it by itself. He squares single digit numbers like 5 at first but then his digit count increases. Benjamin squares the four digit number 9,758 and gets the number 95,298,564. Since the average calculator can only hold up to eight digits, the people can no longer check Benjamin’s answers. Moreover, Arthur Benjamin says that he is going to do the improbable thing; of all the calculator people on stage he will have them take the number 8,649 and multiply it by any three digit number. He is going to have them tell him their answer, but leave a number out; however, this test is proven probable when Benjamin guesses all of their numbers correctly. Next, Arthur Benjamin does guesses the days of the week people were born on. For example, one person told him that he was born on October 5, 1949, and he guessed that they were born on a Wednesday, which is correct. Lastly, Benjamin calculates the square of the number 57,683 and his answer is once again correct. Running through the aisles like a deer in headlights, Benjamin interacts with the crowed to get them involved in the speech. Although the speed of his speech seems somewhat intended, he could have slowed down a bit when trying to calculate the last number. Another attribute that Benjamin presents in his speech is his pausing. When