Maths is cool
“That's cool.”
Words I never thought that another Beardsworth would ever say about maths. But daughter number two did this week.
Laura Robson, who won today at Wimbledon
Driving home from school with daughter number two and two of her friends, Wimbledon was on the radio. One of them asked a question about whether Wimbledon was a knockout tournament, and this led to a maths puzzle.
“Imagine there are 64 players in the women's tournament. In the first round there are 32 matches: how many matches are there in total?”
Cue groans.
Cue ” I need a calculator.“
“No you don't”
Eventually one of the children worked out the answer, 63, by adding 32, 16, 8 etc.
“Now let's make it a bit harder, what's the number of games if there where 256 women in the tournament.”
“I'm not in maths set one.”
“You don't need to be.”
” There will be 255 games, one less than the total number of players. How ever many number of players there is only one person who wins and the rest lose. Since the total number of losers is known, the total number of games is one less than the total.”
“Cool,” said daughter number two.
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