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9 is a most interesting number. 9 is 1 less than 10 and most of us have 10 fingers

(or digits) and we do arithmetic in a base 10 system. I¶ve seen an amazing number of
math tricks that take advantage of something called ³digital roots´, which is closely
related to the idea of ³casting out nines.´ I want to introduce you to these two concepts
and share some fun Math tricks you can do with this ³9 stuff.´

The digital root of a number, and this only makes sense for whole numbers, is
what you get when you add up all of its digits. So, the digital root of 112 is 1+1+2, or 4.
The digital root for 1234 is 1+2+3+4, which is 10. Now, when you¶re computing digital
roots you only want a single digit so in the case of 1234, you add up its digits to get 10
then add 1+0 to get 1. So, 1 is the digital root of 1234.

A few more examples:

314159 ±> 3+1+4+1+5+9 ±> 23 ±> 2+3 ±> 5

2718281828 ±> 2+7+1+8+2+8+1+8+2+8 ±> 47 ±> 4+7 ±> 11 ±> 1+1 ±> 2
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 ±> 45 ±> 4+5 ±> 9

The digital root, it turns out, is the remainder when you divide a number by 9. If
you divide 43 by 9, you will get 4 remainder 7 and you could have quickly determined
that the remainder was going to be 7 by adding up the digits of the number 43. Note
that, in this world of digital root 9 and 0 are equivalent. So, the digital root of 18 is 1+8=9
but when you divide 18 by 9 you don¶t get 9 as a remainder you get 0.

³Casting out nines´ is a shortcut you can take to computing the digital root of a
number. You can ignore 9¶s when you are adding up the digits. So, if I want to know the
digital root of 129 I can compute 1+2+9=12, then do 1+2=3 and the digital root is 3. Or, I
can ignore the 9 altogether and compute the digital root as 1+2=3. Another example:
1996 ±> 1+9+9+6 ±> 25 ±> 2+5 ±> 7. If I ignore, or ³cast out´ the two 9¶s, I get 1+6=7
and I¶ve computed the digital root much more quickly.
 Another thing I can do with the idea of casting out 9¶s is to cast out pairs of digits
that add up to 9. So, to compute the digital root of 18273645 I can do it the long way:
1+8+2+7+3+6+4+5 = 36 and 3+6 = 9. Or, I can notice that 1 and 8 add up to 9, as do 2
and 7, 3 and 6, and 4 and 5. In casting out all those pairs of numbers that add up to 9 I
get 0 left and, as mentioned before, 0 and 9 are equivalent in this digital root business.

A final thought on casting out 9¶s: You can cast out any number of digits that add
up to 9, not just one or two, and the digits being cast out don¶t need to be next to one
another. So, to compute the digital root of 213487 I notice that the digits 2, 3, and 4 add
up to 9 as do the digits 1 and 8. I cast all of them out and I¶m left with 7, which is the
digital root of this number.

Ok, I¶ve introduced digital roots and casting out 9¶s. What fun things can we do with
these ideas?

1. Here¶s a very simple trick. Ask someone to write down a number and to tell you the
digits as they¶re writing it down. Make it a 3-digit number so it¶s not too hard for either of
you to work with. Ask them to divide it by 9 and to not tell you the answer. You compute
the digital root, convert 9 to 0 if you get 9 as the root, and tell them the answer. If, for
example, they tell you that the number is 521 you quickly add up the digits and know
that the remainder will be 8, much quicker than they can do the division.

2. Here¶s another simple trick. Write down the number 0 on a piece of paper and put
that piece of paper in your pocket. Have someone write down a 4-digit number then
have them mix up the digits any way they want and write down the permuted digits as a
second number. Have the person subtract the smaller number from the larger number
and divide the result by 9. Pull out the piece of paper and show them that you magically
predicted that the remainder would be 0.

Here¶s an example of this trick. Let¶s say the person picks the number 1672 and that
they mix up the digits to get 2167. Then they subtract the smaller number from the
larger number, 1672 from 2167. So, 2167-1672 = 495. Lo and behold, the digital root of
495 is 9 so the remainder is 0.
There¶s some algebra involved in explaining how this and other digital root tricks work.
I¶m not going to cover the general algebra in this article but for this particular trick one
thing to notice is that when you take two numbers that have the same remainder and
you divide each by 9 that the difference of those two numbers is divisible by 9. So, if two
numbers have a remainder of 7 when divided by 9 and one of the numbers is 9x+7 and
the other number is 9y+7 then the difference of the two numbers is (9x+7) - (9y+7) = 9x-
9y = 9(x-y), which is divisible by 9 thus the difference leaves no remainder when divided
by 9.

3. Here¶s another trick. This one is a variation on the last one. Have someone pick a 4-
digit number, mix up the digits to form a new number, subtract the larger number from
the smaller one, and tell you all the digits of the difference, in any order, omitting any
digit they want as long as it¶s not 0. So, if the person picked 2345 as their number and
5243 as the permuted version of the number then the difference is 2898. Then they tell
you that 8, 9, and 8 are digits of the difference. You then tell them that 2 is the missing
digit.

The way you know that 2 is the missing digit is that you know that the digital root of the
difference of the two numbers they subtracted will be 0 or 9. Adding the digits they told
you, 8+9+8 gives you a digital root of 7. You need to add 2, which is the missing digit, to
7 to get a digital root of 9 for all of the digits of the difference.

Let¶s do one more example. Let¶s say the person picks 3456 as their number and 6543
as the mixed up version. The difference is 3087. We don¶t allow the person to pick 0 as
the missing digit because then we wouldn¶t be able to know if 0 or 9 was the missing
digit. Let¶s say the person picks 3 and tells you the other digits, 0, 8, and 7. You add up
the the known digits, get 15, which reduces to 6 and then you know that 3 is the digit
you need to get the total to 9.

4. Here¶s a variation on the last trick. Tell a person to pick any 3 digit number and to
multiply it by 1089. Then have them tell you all the digits of the number, in any order,
except for one. Again, tell them not to pick 0. Let¶s work out an example. The person
picks 473. 473×1089=515097. The person tells you that the digits are 0, 5, 1, 7, and 9.
You add the digits as the person tells them to you and you get 22, which reduces to 4.
So, 5 must be the missing digit. This trick is related to the last trick in that 1089 is a
multiple of 9 and any number multiplied by a multiple of 9 will always be a multiple of 9.
So, the digital root of the product will be 9 or 0. So, you have enough information to
determine the missing digit if you know what all the other digits are.

5. Here¶s a final trick. This one is classic and impressive but it takes a bit more work for
the person doing the arithmetic than the other tricks. Have the person think of a 3-digit
number where the digits are in decreasing order, like 542, 651, or 871. Have the person
reverse the digits of the number and subtract it from the first. So, if the person picked
542 then they calculate 542-245 = 297. Then, have the person take the difference they
got, 297, in this case, and reverse its digits. In this case they get 792. Finally, have them
add the number to its reversal. They add 297 to 792. The answer will always be 1089.

Let¶s do one more example: The person picks 651. They reverse the digits to get 156.
651-156=495. They reverse the digits in 495 to get 594. 495+594=1089.


=


 
The golden ratio is a special number approximately equal to 1.6180339887498948482.
We use the Greek letter Phi to refer to this ratio. Like Pi, the digits of the Golden Ratio
go on forever without repeating. It is often better to use its exact value:
1 + sqrt{5}
------------
2

=



 


A Golden Rectangle is a rectangle in which the ratio of the length to the width is the
Golden Ratio. In other words, if one side of a Golden Rectangle is 2 ft. long, the other
side will be approximately equal to 2 * (1.62) = 3.24.

Now that you know a little about the Golden Ratio and the Golden Rectangle, let's look
a little deeper. Take a line segment and label its two endpoints A and C. Now put a
point B between A and C so that the ratio of the short part of the segment (AB) to the
long part (BC) equals the ratio of the long part (BC) to the entire segment (AC):

The ratio of the lengths of the two parts of this segment is the Golden Ratio. In an
equation, we have

AB BC
---- = ---- .
BC AC
Now we're ready for the definition of the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is the ratio of
BC to AB. If we set the value of AB to be 1, and use x to represent the length of BC,
then
1 x
 - = ----- .
x 1+x
If we solve this equation for x, we'll find that it is the value given above, (1+sqrt{5})/2,
which is about 1.62.

If you have a Golden Rectangle and you cut a square off it so that what remains is a
rectangle, that remaining rectangle will also be a Golden Rectangle. You can keep
cutting these squares off and getting smaller and smaller Golden Rectangles.

Š 




In the Fibonacci Sequence (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...), each term is the sum of the two
previous terms (for instance, 2+3=5, 3+5=8, ...). As you go farther and farther to the
right in this sequence, the ratio of a term to the one before it will get closer and closer to
the Golden Ratio.

With the Fibonacci Sequence you can do the opposite of what we described above for
the Golden Rectangle. Start with a square and add a square of the same size to form a
new rectangle. Continue adding squares whose sides are the length of the longer side
of the rectangle; the longer side will always be a successive Fibonacci number.
Eventually the large rectangle formed will look like a Golden Rectangle - the longer you
continue, the closer it will be.