In boboli, we love maths. Yes, we know… it’s not the most normal thing in the world, but we can’t help it. Today, 14th March, is the International Day of Mathematics and we want to honour it with the help of Bmath.
What is Bmath?
Bmath is an app that helps us learn maths in a fun way on our own in just 20 minutes per day. It was created by three engineers to help children understand maths through logic and creativity rather than memorizing concepts.
It is being used in more than 690 schools. Games and challenges occupy a large part of the app as it talks to children in their language.
Did you know that maths has always been around?
Maths has existed from the very beginning of the history of humanity, although man didn’t know it because all human reasoning was pervaded by magic and mystery.
Maths is a science that studies geometrical structures, numbers, forms and constructions. But we can also see it as a game, a language that connects us to everything around us.
4 challenges for celebrating Mathematics Day. Will you join us?
We have selected 4 maths challenges to celebrate this day with Bmath. Would you dare to solve them with us? You’re bound to do well! Let’s begin:
1. Parking patterns
In this challenge we’ll work on patterns. To do that, we’ll visit a place we’re very familiar with in our daily life, a car park. Maths is everywhere! A pattern is a sequence of elements, in this case, of numbers that are related to each other. This sequence can be expressed in innumerable ways… Power to the imagination!
The challenge we propose ([ ] – 4 – [ ] – 16) is particularly interesting for several reasons. In the first place, there are many different ways to get a right answer, but additionally for the same combination of numbers, maybe we can find more than one way of reasoning!
Here are a few examples, but they’re definitely not the only ones:
- 4 – 4 – 16 – 16: we understand there’s a pattern of 2 units that are repeated
- 2 – 4 – 8- 16: the previous number is multiplied by 2
- 1 – 4 – 9 – 16: squared numbers 1 × 1, 2 × 2, 3 × 3, 4 × 4
- 1 – 4 – 9 – 16: adding the previous number with an odd number 0 + 1, 1 + 3, 4 + 5, 9 + 7
- 8 – 4 – 12 – 16: the Fibonacci series (addition of the 2 previous numbers)
2. The combination of the safe
In this challenge we step into the shoes of a detective who has to discover the combination of a safe (4 numbers). Luckily, the owner is a little absent-minded and has left a written clue to remember the combination… that we can use!
If we were to give each digit of the combination an unknown variable we could say, for example, that:
Thousands = Blue = A
Hundreds = Red= B
Tens = Yellow = C
Units = Green = D
To resolve the challenge we have to be very tidy and see what relations can be established between the numbers:
- Blue is bigger than red— A > B
- Red is double yellow— B = 2C
- Yellow is less than green— C < D
- Green is half of blue— 2D = A
- None of the numbers are repeated— A ≠ B ≠ C ≠ D
3. What’s the height of the table?
4. The challenge of the five queens
In this challenge we have 5 queens that we must place on a 5×5 chessboard. What’s the maximum number of squares that cannot be attacked?
Remember the queen cannot reach them in one move. It’s a chess piece that can attack in a straight line vertically, horizontally or diagonally. This is an exercise in logic and representation. Will you help us solve it?
