In an earlier blog I answered the question, “What are four weird traits
you have?” My answer was:
Did you know
that the “random” lucky numbers on the little slip inside your “Chinese”
fortune cookie are not really random? They are chosen so that you can perform
mathematical operations on them (using each number no more than once) and come
up with any number between 1 and 100? I’m 67, so if two of the numbers were 56
and 11, that’s pretty obvious. But what if four of the numbers were 45, 26, 24,
and 11. Then you could construct a formula of 45+(11*(26-24)) = 45+(11*2) =
45+22 = 67. Sometimes you may actually need all six of the numbers given, but
rest assured, your age can be found. Whenever my wife and I go to a Chinese
restaurant and are given a fortune cookie, then I won’t discard the little
slips of paper until I have constructed the formula for both my and her ages.
I decided to write a blog giving a “proof” of this, so instead of
throwing it away, I brought home the latest fortune cookie insert that I
received from our favorite Chinese restaurant. Here are the “lucky numbers” that
were on it – 29, 42, 12, 3, 33, 22.
While it is a bit time-consuming to find all the formulas for all 100
possibilities, here they are for this set of numbers. Interesting fact, isn’t
it?
No comments:
Post a Comment