Today’s Puzzle:
In a recent post, I compared π or (3.14…) with √10 or (3.16…). Steve Morris lives in England where today’s date is written 16-3, not 3-16. He jokingly commented, “So I guess Tuesday (16 March) should be Root Ten Day!” Seriously, day-month-year makes more sense as a writing convention than month-day-year.
Should today be Root Ten Day?
14 March has long been embraced as pi day in the United States, but should 16 March also be a quasi-holiday where kids eat roots like ten French fries or ten carrot sticks?
I remember one of my college professors telling his class that
√2 is about 1.4, and Valentines day is February 14,
√3 is about 1.7, and Saint Patrick’s day is March 17.
To which we could add
√1 is 1, and New Year’s Day is January 1, and
√10 is about 3.1, and Halloween is October 31. (I realize there is a rounding issue with that one.)
Pi day is just a fake holiday ONLY MADE POSSIBLE BY THE STUPID US DATE FORMAT. https://t.co/U6ldKlk6RL
— Ícaro Medeiros (@icaromedeiros) March 15, 2021
Oops. That could be said about all the fake holidays I’ve listed above.
My sister told me that she’s not celebrating Pi Day, because it’s a fake holiday perpetuated by @Hallmark and #BigMath. Same goes for #PrimeDay and @amazon. pic.twitter.com/nab4afqqDX
— W_Rothenberg (@W_Rothenberg) March 15, 2021
Pie day leftovers: husband asks how big of a slice I want, but in radians. I say π/4, max. He brings a full quarter of the thing and says “pie/4!”. I roll my eyes. He said “be glad I didn’t bring you an empty plate and say pie/ate”. Life married to a physicist. 🤣 🥧 pic.twitter.com/4zENmWh7jg
— Rebecca Varney (@RebeccaMVarney) March 16, 2021
And here’s a more serious thought:
For those who think fake/marketing holidays are stupid, Piefalootin in Garland sold completely out of pie on this pi day! They expect to have more baked by 6 p.m. Local businesses need support ALL the time, but I’ all in for anything that helps them! pic.twitter.com/n14ZiSwuS0
— Kristina Rowe – Just Me In Big D (@justmeinbigd) March 14, 2021
Well, however you want to remember what √10 is or not, I decided to make today’s puzzle look like a square root sign for the fun of it. Write the numbers from 1 to 12 in both the first column and the top row so that the puzzle functions like a multiplication table.
Factors of 1615:
- 1615 is a composite number.
- Prime factorization: 1615 = 5 × 17 × 19.
- 1615 has no exponents greater than 1 in its prime factorization, so √1615 cannot be simplified.
- The exponents in the prime factorization are 1, 1, and 1. Adding one to each exponent and multiplying we get (1 + 1)(1 + 1)(1 + 1) = 2 × 2 × 2 = 8. Therefore 1615 has exactly 8 factors.
- The factors of 1615 are outlined with their factor pair partners in the graphic below.
More about the Number 1615:
1615 is the hypotenuse of FOUR Pythagorean triples:
247-1596-1615, which is 19 times (13-84-85),
684-1463-1615, which is 19 times (36-77-85),
760-1425-1615, which is (8-15-17) times 95, and
969-1292-1615, which is (3-4-5) times 323.
Ha ha! Well, I’m all for this, although encouraging kids to eat ten French fries doesn’t sound like the healthiest way to go. Go carrot sticks!
That’s true, most people don’t use a healthy oven-fried French fry recipe like my family does. I added the link to that recipe to the post. We make it at least a couple of times a month.