Math Forum Discussions

kirby urner

Posts: 1,186
Registered: 11/29/05

Re: Of Sequence and Success
Posted: Nov 4, 2012 1:57 AM

Plain Text

On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 10:52 PM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:

> Being good at arithmetic means you're a well oiled machine, like fast
> with an abacus, maybe you have lots of mental tricks and can add the
> grocery bill in your head. Good for you (applause!). But that's more
> under the heading of "salon trick" or "impress your friends at
> parties". Math means knowing lots of theorems and history and
> applications and...
>
>
> Kirby
>
> ** http://www.grunch.net/synergetics/mathsummit.html

Since posting this, one of my colleagues has brought to my attention
the Japanese sport of mental arithmetic.

Flash Anzan is where you don't even use an abacus (other
arithmetic sports allow it).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2012/oct/29/mathematics

In this videos, two young girls play a word game with each
other (my word has to start with the letters yours ends with
I think it is) while at the same time taking in the 15 numbers
they need to mentally add:

http://youtu.be/_vGMsVirYKs

http://youtu.be/YvBEEy5_zdM (same deal)

And this video is from the Flash Anzan championship. Note
the word "flash" is not an understatement.

http://youtu.be/7ktpme4xcoQ

http://youtu.be/sEvJ2sKIb6U (more of a short documentary on the
discipline -- mental abacus involved)

So is this about "getting good at math"? I could see one arguing that
not much math is involved.

This is arithmetic.

Kirby