Sibling Diaries: The journey from “threatful to treatful” – Math with my brother

Having a mathematically gifted sibling has been a boon as well as a bane for me. 

During my younger years, whenever he would discover a pattern in numbers, I used to get frustrated. Math was like a mountain for me. While I’d still be at the bottom, he would have reached the top. It bugged me that he was able to solve the questions from my ‘textbook’ despite him being five years younger than me.

I’m currently studying in high school and now I feel his thinking comes in handy in solving high school math questions. His proficiency in math became my door to discover and explore various kinds of problems like the olympiad. He used to sit in a corner for hours together, and whenever I’d ask, “What are you doing?”. He would reply, “I’m thinking. I am resting”. I used to wonder, “Can ‘Thinking’ really be considered as ‘Resting’ when they are 180 degrees apart from each other?”.

I would assign questions from my textbook to him and marvel at his answers. He tends to pick a very different approach which is unlike the traditional ones.

Being a lad not more than 6 years, he approached me while I was doing calculations in a notebook. Observing silently my method of calculation, he asked,

“Abi, why are you calculating from the unit’s place?”. I was surprised and asked, “Why not?”

He replied, “Oh! It is easier to do from left to right.” I stared at him dumbfounded at this sudden remark. From school, we are all taught addition and subtraction from the unit’s place. I got knocked down with a feather at his unique thinking capabilities.

Another incident that threw light onto this statement was when he proposed a new method of solving a permutation and combination problem. While we rack our brains to find the right method, he simply says, “This is nothing but the (n-2)th tetrahedron number choosing three items from n items.”

Then he continues, “Do you know… 

Choosing 1 object from n items is n/0!

Choosing 2 objects from n items is n(n-1)/1!

Choosing 3 objects from n items is n(n-1)(n-2)/2!

And so on..”

He then divulges into the sea of tetrahedron numbers and strikes a correspondence with square numbers, cube numbers etc. Unable to fathom the vast ocean of his theory then, I am now able to connect his angle of thoughts to the chapter, “Sequences and Series.” 

Solving ‘Math’ with him was more like going on an adventure than troubling our minds to find the right approach. I always enjoyed the way in which we deviate from the current problem we are solving and end up with a totally new question!

He would bombard me with several questions that take me on a rollercoaster ride. Writing Math steps in the air as though his hand was a magic wand gave him unending joy but he expected us to decipher his findings! 

Math was a mentor, friend, and world for my brother. He would create several games with his intuition that would leave me in awe. For example, I remember a time when he asked why averages were used only for addition and not multiplication. This question paved the way for a card game he created called, ‘Multiplicand Average.’ 

It is a game in which we take the numbers from the Uno cards, find the product, and take the x root if x represents the total number of cards. The player whose card’s number is closest to the ‘Multiplicand Average’ loses and has to pay the penalty of drawing a card. The fact that he devised a totally new concept out of the simple cards numbered 1 to 10 made my heart skip a beat.

Though the movies or episodes we would watch together will last only an hour, our discussion will prolong for days together. Even then my brother would never take a break from Math. Once while we watched a Harry Potter movie, the first question that occurred to him was “How many staircases does the castle have?”. There are so many such instances that demonstrate his deep connection with numbers. 

I have always enjoyed the twinkle in his eye and his cute face after arriving at the answer. He also has a massive amount of interest in Science and I would enlighten him with my learning. 

The way he arrives at an answer is in itself intriguing. The number “2134”, being his favourite number, has its own meaning. It is the answer for 

10^3*1^3 + 10^2*2^3 + 10^1*3^3+10^0*4^3.

He has been a motivator, calculator, and of course a math reference book in my life.

 

About the Author: 

Abinaya Rajesh is currently studying in higher secondary. She has an immense interest in Science and loves to connect her day-to-day activities with science concepts. She comes up with some skewed thoughts of “marriage between acids and bases”. Apart from academics, she loves writing, painting, and currently learning classical dance. She is writing a novel during her free time. Her vision is to create an impact on society through scientific research.

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