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313 and Memorizing One Seventh

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How do we know that 313 is a prime number? If 313 were not a prime number, then it would be divisible by at least one prime number less than or equal to √313 ≈ 17.692. Since 313 cannot be divided evenly by 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, or 17, we know that 313 is a prime number.

Question: Liam set a goal to read all of the Harry Potter books. What percentage of the books had he read once he finished the first book? Answer: 1/7 ≈ 14.2857%, which looks like a much more complicated percentage than it really is. 1/7 is a repeating decimal that isn’t too difficult to remember. Here’s how I remember it:

A famous approximation for pi is 22/7 = 3 1/7. If you have 1/7 memorized then you can also easily remember that pi is approximately equal to 3.142857. (It’s true that 355/113 ≈ 3.141592 is a better approximation since it’s accurate to six decimal places while 22/7 is accurate to only two. You can remember 355/113 by thinking 113355 and putting the first three digits in the denominator and the last three digits in the numerator.)

Here’s some other questions to consider: What percentage of the names of the seven dwarfs can you remember? What decimal amount of the seven wonders of the world can you name? What percentage of days last week did you exercise? How many of the seven deadly sins….

The decimals for 2/7, 3/7, 4/7, 5/7, and 6/7 are also easy and use the same very cool pattern, 142857, but each fraction starts with a different digit. Here’s how to remember each of those decimals, too:

Go ahead and make somebody think you’re a human calculator today!

 

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