Playing with Numbers...

New Way of Looking Numbers: 

We all like smart questions and smart answers right ?

When I was in the school I used to ask questions that sound super smart. Ya, when I stand up and asked questions everyone goes like wow.!! he must be really smart.

Later I found out whenever I asked smart questions my friends were getting jealous of me.

When I am really asking dumb questions is that I learnt and at the same time it makes others to laugh at me. So, is it okay if I ask some dumb questions today?

Will you be angry with me? you may be thinking what kind of dumb questions i am going to ask?

May be the questions are who are Numbers?  Who created them?, Where do they live? Are these are interesting questions. Do these questions are having some meaningful answers?

See, for example I know 4 pencils, I know 4 people, I know 4 teaches, I Know  4 things that is real, but what does it mean?

I doesn’t see 4 on the real world, I only used to see it in a paper. I saw it is written or drawn somewhere but every language in the world writes 4 differently for example 4,४,௪  there are thousands of ways in which 4 can be drawn, which of this is 4, what is that idea in which the 4 have been drawn. We have much of these questions in our mind.

 Probably long ago a man in a cave wrote down a line or kept a stick to count. Lets 1 for 1 stick 2 for 2 sticks 3 for 3 sticks and so on and he keep doing this. Means that particular lines/sticks is for that particular number. That not we represent these days. We write 1 like this 2 like this 3 like this and so on.

But question is why can’t we keep doing the stick think?? What’s make that difficult see the thing about great teacher is that they can take something in which you may get confuse about and don’t understand and they make it super simple. I am going to take a risk because I am going to do this opposite you know numbers. You played it for sometimes you know how to add, subtract, multiply and divide you know all of these things but I am going to ask questions why the things that you do work do?

Do we have the understanding what really happening when we do all these things? Now you can wish me luck because lots of time when we do  this you may think why this guy is taking a simple thing like addition. I know how to do this. I know how to get the answer. Why he is making it so complicated, because we don’t want to learn in which our parents, grandparents and great grand parents learnt. Like take 2 numbers do this , do that and  you will get the answer. So I am very sure that you know how to get the answer but we will interested in why we get the answer, and how far we are sure that the answer is correct. So in this chapter it is a challenge for both you and me. And I am 100% sure you know all answers to each of my question that I am going to ask you. But I will ask you to think of new questions likes that are not there in books. Questions that nobody has ask before. Its should be your own questions. So let see how such questions you may ask.

One could be why do all the things that I do works?

Why does multiplications work the way it does.

Why does division works when I do that?

Think questions you can ask is:

How  many new ways can I come up with to do this things by myself?

In how many different ways I can do this by using my own head. And get the answer.

So think about these questions as we dive in to the world of numbers and let see how can we look at them in a complete new way?