Multiplication by Drawing Lines

Posted on | January 31, 2008 | 2 Comments

Watch and wonder!

~~Can anyone explain the mathematics of this to me or point me at something that explains it?~~

Note the Stephen Heppell comment beneath the video (unfortunately next to a couple of particularly ignorant comments from people with small intelligence and smaller humanity).

Thanks to David Warlick (and Stephen) for the link.

FOOTNOTE – I tried it myself and I now see how it works – brilliantly simple!

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Category: creativity, education, learning, uncategorizable

Comments

2 Responses to “Multiplication by Drawing Lines”

Judy Kendall
January 31st, 2008 @ 1:59 pm

I love this! Exactly as you said – brilliantly simple… looks complex but, having done a little long multiplication beside it, it is very simple. I also tried it with some larger numbers – the diagrams get a bit messy but it still seemed to work if you’re careful and don’t go blind counting dots!
These are the sort of activities that I always loved doing with my classes – to get them really thinking! Thanks for posting it.
Don
January 31st, 2008 @ 11:51 pm

John

I thought I reconsied this. It’s part of what’s know as Vedic Maths http://www.vedicmathsindia.org/tutorials.htm

I could have done with some of these when I was at school!