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.